Word: ashton
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Castles & Caves. U.S. ballet fans, awaiting the arrival of the English company, had been eager to see Sadler's Wells' modern English ballets-with choreography by De Valois, Helpmann and Frederick Ashton. Among the best of these were De Valois' animated chess game, Checkmate, her Rake's Progress (after Hogarth's famous drawing sequence) and Ashton's gay Wedding Bouquet and impish Façade (to music by William Walton). They were performed with a brittle wit and a steely stylishness...
...Cast. She got a chance to warm up. After her 16th birthday, she took over Markova's role in Ashton's Les Rendezvous. Already, for the conservative Morning Post, she had "some of that intoxicating quality always associated with the great dancers." After her first Swan Lake, the Daily Telegraph granted her "that rare title 'ballerina.' " Her first Giselle, at 17, was, said the News-Chronicle, "the partial fulfillment of a promise she makes every time she dances." By the time she was 20 she had completed the great classical trilogy with Sleeping Beauty...
...night last fall during a performance in Covent Garden, Margot slipped and pulled a tendon in her ankle. With her leg in a cast, she could not dance again for three months, though she was scheduled to open soon in Ashton's Cinderella, which she had rehearsed for six months. It was the first time anyone had even seen her crushed. Unable to endure London without dancing, she went to Paris. Moira Shearer danced Cinderella in her place...
...Margot is still seriously studious. Even after tough evening performances like Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake she rarely misses the ritual of morning class, where she stretches at the bar like the other dancers. She is completely unaffected-a quality which helps set the atmosphere backstage. Explains Frederick Ashton: "When the prima ballerina doesn't put on airs, obviously anyone else trying to would only look ludicrous...
Once in a Blue Moon. Among her closest friends are Helpmann, Ashton, Dancer Pamela May, the U.S. Ballet Theatre's Nora Kaye and Les Ballets de Paris' Roland Petit (TIME, Oct. 17). With such people Margot enjoys after-theater suppers or whipping up a home-cooked meal and bringing out some really good wine. One of her extravagances is expensive clothes, but, like most ballerinas, she darns the toes of her own ballet slippers (she brought 40 pairs...