Category Archives: Dance Legends

Blog posts about people I’ve worked with in the ballet world who either are actual legends, or who have been legendarily wonderful in my working life.

Madge Gillings and Mrs Bagot Stack on record

Posted on January 26, 2021 7:16 pm by Jonathan Still

The Women’s League of Health and Beauty Exercises—music from the early 1930s, and a beautiful documentary, all online. Continue reading →

Posted in Dance Legends, Music, Top pages | Tagged Bagot Stack, Madge Gillings, Prunella Stack, Women's League of Health and Beauty, pianists | 2 Comments

Kostrovitskaya’s career as a plasterer

Posted on October 9, 2020 5:50 pm by Jonathan Still

In these days when artists are insulted by the idea of having to retrain as something else, let’s take a moment to remember Vera Kostrovitskaya, famous pedagogue—and plasterer, restorer of Leningrad after World War 2. Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Dance Legends, People | Tagged Blokada, Retraining, Rishi Sunak, Siege of Leningrad, Vaganova Academy, Vera Kostrovitskaya, ballet | Leave a comment

Advent 20: What a difference a D makes

Posted on December 20, 2008 8:14 am by Jonathan Still

Today’s golden moment also concerns Mark Morris and Les Patineurs, it so happens. I was playing the waltz from Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète (better known as the pas de trois from Les Patineurs) for another Mark Morris class, and around bar … Continue reading →

Posted in Advent calendar, Dance, Dance Legends, Music, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Advent 2008 | 3 Comments

Romeo & Juliet & Mark Morris at the Barbican

Posted on November 7, 2008 10:00 pm by Jonathan Still

On Wednesday, legged it down to the Barbican to see Mark Morris’s R&J, with the score unearthed by the incredible Simon Morrison – not just ‘a Princeton music professor’ as he’s been called recently, but a superstar scholar of Russian … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance Legends, Music | Tagged Personal | Leave a comment

A Mischievous Muse & Maritime Rites

Posted on September 14, 2007 8:13 pm by Jonathan Still

To the Australian High Commission for the launch of Anthony Meredith & Paul Harris’s biography of my late friend, composition tutor and mentor Malcolm Williamson, A Mischievous Muse. From what I have read so far, it’s a terrific book, and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Dance Legends, Music | Tagged Friends etc., News | Leave a comment

Playing for Mark Morris

Posted on July 7, 2007 10:18 pm by Jonathan Still

Just back from what’s turned out to be an annual stint for the last three years, playing for The Mark Morris Dance Group company classes on their flying visits to London. As always, it’s the nearest thing I know to … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Dance Legends, Playing for ballet class | Leave a comment