Frederick Ashton

Frederick Ashton was born 11th September 1904 in Ecuador. He grew up in Peru and in 1917 he fell in love with a dancer, Anna Pavlova, who was one of the first prima ballerinas of her time, she was russian, she also trained and danced with Marius Petipa, she established a school of dance in England and she had a very successful touring career. He was sent to school in England and then in 1921 he worked in an office until his brother offered to pay for his training. He began his training at aged seventeen to become a proffessional ballet dancer. He trained for ten and one of his teachers, Dame Marie Rambert, was convinced of his talent, so pushed him into choreography as it was too late to become a dancer. He became a very important choreographer in British ballet who re-staged 'Giselle' after Petipa. His first choreography was 'Tragedy of Fashion' which was a huge success. He trained with Enricho Cecchitti and created nearly twenty ballets of Rambert. In 1928-1929 he found a new idol who replaced Anna Pavlova, Bronislava Nijinska, who was also russian, she was very petite however, very strong, with the mariinsky ballet she had a very successful career and she was the sister of the famous dancer, Vaslav Nijinska. After 1935 he moved away from Rambert to work with Ninette de valois and the Vic Wells ballet which is now the Royal Ballet. 

The people which in fluenced Frederick Ashton's career-each in their own way:

 

Frederick Ashton's choreographic style:
 


His work became plotless for a while e.g. when he did 'Symphonic Variations' in 1946, 'Scenes de Ballet' in 1948 and 'Variations on a Theme by purcell' in 1955 however, later on in this year he returned to narrative ballet when he did 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'La Fille mal Garde' in 1960-this was known as the happiest of all ballets.WWII in 1939 influenced his style so social hierachy and power struggles are what Ashton's ballets focused on.
Summary of choreographic style:

• Cecchetti's codified technique
• Story telling
• Elaborate characters
• Use of the leit motif from Petipa
• Interests in social conflicts