Michel Fokine

Dancer and choreographer, born in St Petersburg, NW Russia. He worked with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris from 1909, and in 1923 went to New York City, becoming a US citizen in 1932. He is credited with the creation of modern ballet from the elaborate and ornamental, stylized mode prevalent at the beginning of the 20th-c. He based his choreography on intensely disciplined training, but eliminated rigid tradition, thus enabling a new freedom of movement to come with expressionism. Among the c.70 ballets he created are The Dying Swan (1905) solo for Anna Pavlova, Prince Igor (1909), Les Sylphides (1909), Scheherazade (1910), The Firebird (1910), and Petrouchka (1916).

He was born in St.Petersburg and at the age of 9 he was accepted into the St. Petersburg theatrical school. In 1898 he debuted on the stage of the Maryinsky theatre in the ballet Pakhit;

Fokine aspired to move beyond stereotypical ballet traditions.

Some of his early works include the ballet Acis and Galatea (1905) and The Dying Swan (1907), which was a solo dance for Anna Pavlova.

In 1909 Sergei Diaghilev invited Fokine to become the choreographer of his Ballets Russes in Paris.

He staged more than 70 ballets in Europe and the United States. His best known works were Chopiniana (later revised as Les Sylphides), Le Carnaval and Le Pavillon d'Armide. Among his works for the Ballets Russes were The Firebird and Le Spectre de la Rose.

Fokine died in New York on August 22, 1942.