Ninette de Valois

Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the "godmother" of English and Irish ballet. Life Early life and family Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom. A member of a gentry family, she was the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO, a British Army officer, and Elizabeth Graydon Smith, a glassmaker known as "Lilith Stannus". She was the maternal great-granddaughter of the diarist Elizabeth Grant Smith and the maternal great-great granddaughter of Scottish politician John Peter Grant. Through her mother she was also the great grandniece of Sir John Peter Grant and a first cousin twice removed of Lady Strachey. In 1905 she moved to England, to live with her grandmother in Kent. She started attending ballet lessons in 1908, at the age of ten. Early dancing career At the age of thirteen Stannus began her professional training at the Lila Field Academy for Children. It was at this time that she changed her name to Ninette de Valois and made her professional debut as a principal dancer in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End.