KIRSOVA DANCING AS THE DOLL IN ‘PETROUSHKA’ KIRSOVA (Hélène, 1910-1962, Danish Prima Ballerina, Choreographer and Ballet Teacher)

Fine Vintage Portrait Photo by Houston-Rogers, Signed with the place and date, showing her full length in costume, dancing, dressed as The doll. in Petrushka, 8” x 6”, London

She is noted as the founder of the first professional ballet company in Australia. She trained in Paris with former Sergei Diaghilev ballet dancers and choreographers. She then performed in companies run by Léo Staats and Ida Rubinstein before in 1931 becoming a soloist with Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, dancing for several years in Europe and North America. In 1936, as a principal dancer, she joined René Blum's Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in which she scored a singular success in London. Later that year she joined Colonel Wassily de Basil's Monte Carlo Russian Ballet as prima ballerina on an extensive tour of Australia and New Zealand where she was fêted by critics and audiences. She remained in Australia, started a ballet school in Sydney, and in 1941 formed the Kirsova Ballet. Despite wartime restrictions she directed the company for several years before retiring in 1948. She has been described as the "Godmother" of Australian ballet.
Kirsova died early and suddenly. On a regular trip to London in 1962 with her husband, she was taken seriously ill. An emergency operation was performed at Guy's Hospital, but she died there of cancer on 22 February 1962, at the age of 51.
Petrushka is a ballet by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1911 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine and stage designs and costumes by Alexandre Benois, who assisted Stravinsky with the libretto.
Houston Rogers (1902-1970) was one of London's leading theatre photographers from the 1930s until his death.

Item Date:  1936

Stock No:  43051      £375

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