Antony Tudor

Antony Tudor (born William Cook; 4 April 1908 – 19 April 1987) was an English ballet choreographer, teacher and dancer. He founded the London Ballet, and later the Philadelphia Ballet Guild in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., in the mid-1950s.

Early life and education

Tudor was born William Cook in East London, and grew up in the Finsbury area. He discovered dance accidentally. His first exposure to professional ballet was in his late teens when he first saw Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He witnessed the dancer Serge Lifar of the Diaghilev Ballet in Balanchine's Apollon Musagète in 1928. Later, the Ballets Russes would introduce him to Anna Pavlova, who further inspired his journey into the world of dance. Tudor reached out to Cyril W. Beaumont, the owner of a ballet book shop in the Charing Cross Road district in London, to seek advice regarding training and was instructed to study with Marie Rambert, a former Diaghilev Ballet dancer who taught the Cecchetti method.

Career

Tudor began dancing professionally with Marie Rambert in 1928, becoming general assistant for her Ballet Club the next year. A precocious choreographer, at age twenty-three he created for her dancers Cross Garter'd, then Lysistrata, The Planets and other works at the little Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, and his two most revolutionary, Jardin aux lilas (Lilac Garden) and Dark Elegies, before the age of thirty, himself dancing the main roles.