Events relating to dance

Marie Rambert's London-based company, deriving originally from her school, takes the name Ballet Rambert

Leningrad's opera and ballet company is renamed the Kirov, in memory of the city's recently assassinated commissar

American Ballet Theatre, directed by Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant, begins its first season in New York

US choreographer Agnes de Mille creates Black Ritual for American Ballet Theatre

US choreographer Merce Cunningham begins a long creative partnership with the composer John Cage

Composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins work together on the ballet Fancy Free

Fancy Free becomes On the Town, a Broadway musical by Leonard Bernstein, directed by Jerome Robbins

Frederick Ashton choreographs Symphonic Variations, to music by César Franck

The marriage of George Balanchine and Maria Tallchief unites two major stars of the US ballet scene

British dancer Robert Helpmann choreographs the ballet scenes in the film The Red Shoes, featuring Moira Shearer

George Balanchine's New York City Ballet becomes the resident company in the City Center for Music and Drama

Ballerina Mikiko Matsuyama and her husband establish a family-run balllet company in Tokyo

Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, to music by Prokofiev, is the first full-length ballet by an English choreographer

Roland Petit's ballet Carmen, starring himself and his wife Zizi Jeanmaire, is a sensation at its London premiere

Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova form the Festival Ballet, in time for next year's Festival of Britain

British-Canadian choreographer Celia Franca founds the National Ballet of Canada

A Question of Upbringing begins Antony Powell's 'A Dance to the Music of Time'

Gene Kelly dances a famous routine with an umbrella in the film Singin' in the Rain

British choreographer Kenneth MacMillan creates his first ballet, Somnambulism, to music by Stan Kenton

Merce Cunningham forms his own company of dancers, initially at Black Mountain College in North Carolina

US choreographer Paul Taylor begins a long and fruitful collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg as his set designer

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