Alexandra Danilova

Alexandra Danilova was born Aleksandra Dionisyevna Danilova on November 20, 1903, in Peterhof, Russian Empire. She trained at the Russian Imperial Ballet School in Leningrad and began her professional career as a member of St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet. In 1924, she departed Russia alongside George Balanchine, and the two performed that October at The Empire Theater with two other principal dancers of the Russian National Ballet. They were subsequently engaged by Sergei Diaghilev, with Danilova joining as a dancer and Balanchine as a choreographer. Danilova toured extensively with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and, following Diaghilev's death, continued with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

With the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Danilova formed a celebrated partnership with Frederic Franklin. On October 12, 1938, the company gave the American premiere of Gaîté Parisienne at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, with Danilova in the role of the Glove Seller. The role became closely identified with her, and the ballet frequently served as the opening-night finale of the company's seasons. On the opening night of the 1941 New York season, her first entrance drew a spontaneous ovation that halted the performance, a response that became a tradition at every subsequent opening-night performance of the work with Danilova.

Danilova's Broadway career spanned 1944 to 1958 and included appearances with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Slavenska-Franklin Co. She made her Broadway debut in 1944 in Song of Norway. Her final ballet performance came in 1957. The following year, she made her musical comedy debut in Oh Captain!, appearing in a single scene in which she danced with the show's star, Tony Randall. The production was not a commercial success and closed within a few months of opening. Danilova and Randall later performed the same scene on an episode of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.

In 1964, a chance encounter with Balanchine on the street led to her joining the faculty of the School of American Ballet, where he hired her upon learning of her financial difficulties. Beginning in 1965, with Balanchine's approval, she organized spring workshop performances for students, which became a significant showcase for emerging dancers. She remained on the faculty until her retirement in 1989. During that period she also contributed to New York City Ballet productions, staging a 1972 presentation of Les Sylphides under its original title, Chopiniana, and assisting Balanchine on his 1974 choreography of Coppélia, for which she staged the Petipa choreography for Act II, a role she had performed many times during her own dancing career.

Outside the stage, Danilova appeared in the 1977 film The Turning Point in the role of a ballet coach. In 1986 she published an autobiography titled Choura, her personal nickname, which received the 1986 de la Torre Bueno Prize. That same year she became an American citizen, having done so in 1946. In 1989, she was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in recognition of her lifetime achievements in ballet.

In her personal life, Danilova maintained a long relationship with Balanchine from 1926 to 1933, though the two never married. She was married twice, first to Giuseppe Massera in 1934 and later to Casimir Kokitch in 1941. Danilova died on July 13, 1997, in New York. She was given a Russian Orthodox funeral service and was interred at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, Suffolk County, New York, the same cemetery where Balanchine is buried.