Serge Lifar

Sergei Mikhailovich Lifar (also in French Serge Lifar form, Russian Сергей Михайлович Лифарь, Ukrainian Сергій Михайлович Лифар, Serhiy Mychajlowytsch Lifar; * 2 Apriljul / April 15 1904greg in Kiev, Russian Empire, now Ukraine, .. † December 15 1986 in Lausanne ) was a russian- French dancer and choreographer. He is regarded as one of the great dance stars of the 1930s and 1940s. He belonged to a generation of Russian artists who not only Russia and France brought fame, but given the further development path of the ballet around the world.

Lifar, the son of a civil servant, began at the age of 16 years with the ballet. He attended the ballet classes of 1920 Bronislava Nijinska at the Opera Ballet in Kiev. As Nijinska in 1921 left Russia and danced again with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris, he followed her and joined Diaghilev in 1923 in an ensemble, first as a dancer, then as a choreographer. There he took another ballet lessons with Nicholas Legat and Enrico Cecchetti.

Since 1932, Lifar staged the ballets of the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.

Today there are in Kiev to Sergei Lifar dancing competition.

Works

• Lifar Sergei: Djagilev i s Djagilevym. Dom knigi. Paris 1939
• Lifar, S.: Serge Diaghilev, His Life, His Work, His Legend: An Intimate Biography. New York 1940
• Lifar, Serge: A History of Russian Ballet. London 1954
• Lifar, Serge: Les Mémoires d' Icare. Paris 1996