Ninette de Valois Biography Quotes 20 Report mistakes

Early Life and Training
Ninette de Valois was born Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House near Blessington in County Wicklow, Ireland. Irish-born but largely raised and educated in England, she showed an early inclination for the stage and adopted the name Ninette de Valois as a young performer. In London she trained rigorously, most notably under the legendary Italian teacher Enrico Cecchetti, whose emphasis on clean classical line, musicality, and disciplined daily practice would shape her standards for a lifetime. Those early lessons in method and style, coupled with the self-possession she developed as a young professional in the theater, prepared her for a career that would move from performing to institution building.

Performing Career and the Ballets Russes
De Valois began as a dancer in the West End and in touring productions, gaining stagecraft and versatility. Her performing career took a decisive turn when she joined Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in the 1920s. Dancing with Diaghilev exposed her to the world's most fertile ballet laboratory, where choreographers, composers, and designers collaborated at the highest level. There she absorbed the possibilities of a modern repertory company and the importance of artistic leadership. Though gifted as a performer, a chronic physical condition curtailed her stage career earlier than she might have wished, pushing her toward the work that would define her legacy: teaching, choreography, and direction.

From Dancer to Founder
In 1926 she established her own school in London, the Academy of Choreographic Art, with the aim of producing dancers trained to a uniform standard. That same year the theater impresario Lilian Baylis invited her to create and direct ballet at the Old Vic. The partnership between de Valois and Baylis proved pivotal. When Baylis reopened Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1931, de Valois was ready with both company and school. She founded the Vic-Wells Ballet and a companion school, building from the ground up a British ballet institution modeled with keen insight upon the best of what she had seen in Russia and in Diaghilev's company, but adapted to British conditions and tastes.

Building a Company and a Repertory
De Valois recruited exceptional talent and gave it a context in which to thrive. She brought in Frederick Ashton, who became the company's principal choreographer and later its director; his lyric classicism and wit became hallmarks of the house style. She hired Constant Lambert as musical director, ensuring exacting musical standards and fruitful composer collaborations. Early principals Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin helped establish the company's profile, while Robert Helpmann contributed both as dancer and choreographer. De Valois's leadership balanced the cultivation of individual stars with the creation of a strong ensemble, and she insisted on a coherent school-to-company pipeline that produced artists steeped in shared values of line, épaulement, and dramatic clarity.

War Years and Postwar Expansion
During the Second World War the company toured widely throughout Britain, maintaining morale and turning adversity into a national mission for dance. After the war, in 1946, de Valois secured residency at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where the Sadler's Wells company took its place alongside opera as a permanent cultural institution. To serve both Covent Garden and the original Sadler's Wells stage, she organized a second troupe, the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, a sister company that would eventually evolve into today's Birmingham Royal Ballet. Under her guidance, the school expanded in scope and rigor, ensuring that the companies had a continuous supply of well-trained dancers.

Choreographer and Producer of Classics
Although best known as a founder and director, de Valois was also a choreographer of distinction. Her works included The Rake's Progress, a narrative ballet shaped by vividly etched characterizations, and Checkmate, a stark allegory of conflict that became one of the most enduring British ballets of the 20th century. She also devised new productions of the classics, understanding that thoughtful staging and coaching could refresh the canon for new generations. Her sensitivity to casting and dramatic sense made her an exacting producer: the classics were not museum pieces but living theater, animated by precise musicality and unshowy discipline.

Margot Fonteyn and the Company's Public Identity
Among the many artists she nurtured, Margot Fonteyn became the face of the company to the wider world. De Valois guided Fonteyn from student to star, trusting Frederick Ashton to craft roles that revealed her musical and dramatic gifts. In the 1960s, when Rudolf Nureyev arrived in the West after his defection, de Valois supported the Fonteyn-Nureyev partnership that electrified audiences and brought new international attention to the company. Even as celebrity swirled, de Valois kept her focus on balance: star dancers were vital, but the integrity of the ensemble and the clarity of the repertory came first.

Leadership, Succession, and Style
De Valois's leadership style was firm, pragmatic, and farsighted. She believed that a permanent company required a distinctive way of dancing and a consistent pedagogy. She kept egos in check while giving artists room to develop. In 1963 she retired from day-to-day direction, naming Frederick Ashton as her successor; later, Kenneth MacMillan would bring a powerful dramatic strain into the repertory, a development she had made possible by creating structures that accommodated different artistic voices. Throughout, she remained a guiding presence, attending rehearsals and performances, advising on standards, and reminding everyone that excellence is a habit, not an accident.

International Work and Writing
De Valois took her vision abroad as well, advising new institutions and helping to plant ballet where it had not previously taken root, notably in Turkey, where she assisted the development of a state ballet company and school. She also wrote influential books, including Invitation to the Ballet, a clear-eyed introduction for general readers, and later memoirs that traced the making of British ballet. Her prose mirrored her practice: precise, unsentimental, and deeply committed to the craft.

Honors and Personal Life
Her contributions were recognized with many honors. She was created a Dame of the British Empire and later admitted to the Order of Merit, among other distinctions and honorary degrees. In 1935 she married Dr. Arthur Connell; while she guarded her privacy, those who worked with her knew how much she valued constancy, order, and the quiet routines that allowed creative work to flourish. She lived to see the companies and the school she founded become pillars of British cultural life.

Legacy and Final Years
Ninette de Valois died on 8 March 2001 in London, aged 102. By then the Vic-Wells initiative she began with Lilian Baylis had grown into an ecosystem: The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, its sister company that would become Birmingham Royal Ballet, and a world-renowned school preparing dancers and choreographers for international careers. The method she championed, rooted in Cecchetti discipline yet colored by Ashton's lyricism and the dramatic currents of later choreographers, gave British ballet a recognizable accent. Colleagues and successors testified that her greatest creation was not a single ballet but a durable culture: a way of training, working, and thinking about theater that made ballet a central part of national life.

Our collection contains 20 quotes who is written by Ninette, under the main topics: Wisdom - Learning - Art - Equality - Resilience.