Final curtain falls for glittering star of ballet

By Charlotte Higgins in London
December 4, 2004
Markova in an undated picture of her teaching at the Royal Ballet School.


Dame Alicia Markova, the prima ballerina assoluta and one of the most influential figures in British dance, died in hospital on Thursday, the day after her 94th birthday. A friend said she had been "gradually fading away this year".

As one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, Dame Alicia's contribution to British cultural life was profound. Born Lilian Alicia Marks in north London, she began dancing because of her crooked legs - the surgeon advised her the choice was between ballet classes or leg-irons for life.

She was renamed "Markova" by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, her early champion, when she was plucked from her London ballet class to join his famous Ballets Russes in 1925, aged 14. Diaghilev called her his "English daughter"; she called him "Sergypop".

In the 1920s, she became the early inspiration of the choreographers Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine, both of whom cut their creative teeth on her astonishing talent. Henri Matisse drew squiggles on her body-leotard - the first modern ballet costume - and the young Igor Stravinsky taught her the bizarre new rhythms of his music.

She was crucial to the invention of British ballet, dancing for Marie Rambert and with the Vic-Wells (now Royal) Ballet from the early 1930s.

In the latter company she became inextricably linked with the role of Giselle, her interpretation of which was described on Thursday as "definitive" by Monica Mason, the Royal Ballet's director. She was still dancing the part at the age of 48.

During World War II she danced in America, notably as a pioneering ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre, where her status as an international star was confirmed. Back in Britain she founded English Festival Ballet (now the English National Ballet), energetically touring the country and creating, for the first time, a national grassroots audience for ballet. She retired from the stage in 1962, but continued to teach.

Judith Mackrell, The Guardian's dance critic, said: "She was the first British ballerina with any kind of international profile. The fact that she danced those roles so shatteringly with Diaghilev's company, and the fact she was their emerging artist, and British, was vitally important.

"She was both 'our girl Alicia' and also a dancer with a huge international mystique," Mackrell said. "When she danced in Britain, she brought with her the aroma of Diaghilev and of America. Her death severs a link with history."

The Guardian, The Telegraph, London