Frederick ashton ballets

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Frederick Ashton Choreographer

Biography

Frederick Ashton (1904-1988) together with his teacher Marie Rambert and then Ninette de Valois, was instrumental in creating England’s two permanent troupes—the Rambert Dance Company and the Royal Ballet. Paradoxically, this quintessentially British choreographer was born in Ecuador and grew up in Peru. It was there as a schoolboy that he saw Anna Pavlova dance and in doing so he discovered his calling. Initially obliged to study in England and pursue a career in the City of London, he began taking his first classical dance lessons in secret in the early 1920s. Ashton began with the exceptional dancer and choreographer Léonide Massine. The latter then recommended that he study under Marie Rambert, who soon channelled him towards choreography. For his first creation, A Tragedy of Fashion (1926), he collaborated with Sophie Fedorovitch, who would become his advisor and who would also design numerous sets and costumes. He spent his first years as a professional dancer in Paris with the Ida Rubinstein Company during which time he learned

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FREDERICK ASHTON BIOGRAPHY by Julie Kavanagh

It's easy to forget that Frederick Ashton, founding genius of English ballet, was originally South American. The youngest of four boys, he was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador on 17 September l904, and brought up in Lima, Peru where his sister was born. Ashton's father, a businessman and vice-consul, was British, and so was his mother, who introduced her impressionable son to the airs and graces of belle epoque Lima. Images from childhood - the languorous sensuality of tango dancers at colonial tea dances, the swaying, ritualized walk of feast day processions - stayed with Ashton, infiltrating his choreography. His Roman Catholic schooling also found expression in his ballets. The ceremony and mystical potency of high mass influenced his timing of effects and climaxes, while the ecstatic, baroque indulgence of Spanish religion is obliquely sublimated in Symphonic Variations, his greatest and most life-affirming work. More crucially, it was an epiphanic experience in Lima that decided the 13 year old Ashton's destiny. This was a performan

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Frederick Ashton was born in Guayaquil in Ecuador on 17 September 1904. He was brought up in Peru, and it was there, in 1917, that he saw his first ballet. He was enthralled by Anna Pavlova's performance, and decided that he wanted to dance. Having come to England to work, he began to study with Léonide Massine, but family disapproval forced him to keep this secret. However, in 1926, after two years' tuition, Massine was no longer able to teach the 22-year-old Ashton and recommended him to Marie Rambert. It was she who convinced him of his potential as a choreographer, and he created his first choreography, A Tragedy of Fashion, a short while later.

In 1928, he joined Ida Rubinstein's company as a dancer under Bronislava Nijinska. Whilst he was with the company he became something of an apprentice to Nijinska. She was a hard taskmaster, but Ashton learnt a lot from her. He also danced in most of the company's performances, including Ida Rubenstein's famous interpretation ofBolero. However, Nijinska found having to give Ida Rubinstein a role in every new ballet very difficult