Throwback Thursday and Mona Inglesby
In the world of ballet history, Mona Inglesby isn’t exactly
a household name. But once, for a brief time, she was more famous than Margot
Fonteyn.
While living in London as a teenager, she was noticed by Marie
Rambert, and went on to study with Vera Volkova. During the war she drove an
ambulance, but dance was never far from her mind. She decided she could help
the war effort more by producing ballets to lift the spirits of the public.
That’s how, at age 22, Mona Inglesby founded the
International Ballet. It survived entirely on box-office receipts – an amazing
feat. Dancers who joined this new company included Maurice Béjart, Moira Shearer,
Henry Danton and Harold Turner. Soon it was Britain’s largest ballet company.
In the early 1950s, Ms. Inglesby was featured on the cover of a magazine that
also carried a story on a young dancer named Margot Fonteyn.
Sadly, her company didn’t last. Soon after a performance
before an audience of 32,000 people in Verona, the International Ballet folded.
It was December 1953.
Despite her accomplishments, publishers rejected her memoirs
so she self-published them as: Ballet in
the Blitz: the History of a Ballet Company.
Mona Inglesby died in 2006.
From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets:
Dance History Factoid #75:
“Mona Inglesby founded the British ballet company called The
International Ballet.”
Link of the Day:
Quote
of the Day:
“I believe that ballet should be seen in
every reasonable corner of the country, for everyone to enjoy the immense
pleasure which this art creates.”
-
Mona Inglesby
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Want to know more about me? Read my interview at Ballet Connections:
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