PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: dance
Indian dancer and singer
T. Balasaraswati Indian dancer and singer in the Karnatak (South Indian) tradition, who was one of the 20th century’s foremost exponents of the bharata natyam style of classical dance. She was instrumental...
French author
Théophile Gautier was a poet, novelist, critic, and journalist whose influence was strongly felt in the period of changing sensibilities in French literature—from the early Romantic period to the aestheticism...
American choreographer and dancer
Anna Sokolow American dancer, choreographer, and teacher noted for her socially and politically conscious works and her unique blend of dance and theatre choreography. She is also recognized for her instrumental...
French dancer and musician
Arthur Saint-Léon was a French dancer, choreographer, violinist, and inventor of a method of dance notation, celebrated as the choreographer of the ballet Coppélia. The son of Léon Michel, a dancer who...
American dancer
Glen Tetley was an American dancer, choreographer, and ballet director, whose performances and compositions integrated elements of modern dance and classical ballet. Tetley began his dance career relatively...
American performance artist and author
Laurie Anderson American performance artist, composer, and writer whose work explores a remarkable range of media and subject matter. Anderson began studying classical violin at five years of age and later...
Russian dancer
Léonide Massine was a Russian dancer and innovative choreographer of more than 50 ballets, one of the most important figures in 20th-century dance. Massine studied acting and dancing at the Imperial School...
American choreographer
Trisha Brown American dancer and choreographer whose avant-garde and postmodernist work explores and experiments in pure movement, with and without the accompaniments of music and traditional theatrical...
Russian dancer and choreographer
Alexei Ratmansky Russian ballet dancer and choreographer known for his exceptional musicality, seemingly limitless energy, and stylistic versatility. As artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet (2004–08),...
American dance patron, writer, and businessman
Lincoln Kirstein was an American dance authority, impresario, writer, and businessman who collaborated with George Balanchine to found and direct the various ballet companies that eventually became the...
Swedish-Russian dancer
Christian Johansson was a Swedish-born ballet dancer and principal teacher at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, who made a fundamental contribution to the development of the Russian style of...
American dancer and actress
Anne Jane Hartley Gilbert American dancer and actress, popular on the 19th-century stage for her character roles. Anne Hartley grew up in London. At age 12 she began studying dance in the ballet school...