Dame Margot Fonteyn, DBE, stage name of Margaret Evelyn de Arias, was an English ballerina. She spent her entire career as a dancer with the Royal Ballet, eventually being appointed Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the company by Queen Elizabeth. Beginning ballet lessons at the age of four, she studied in England, the United States and China, where her father was transferred because of his work. Her training in Shanghai was with George Goncharov, contributing to her continuing interest in Russian ballet. Returning to London at 14, she was invited to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School by Dame Ninette de Valois. She succeeded Alicia Markova as the company’s prima ballerina in 1935. The Vic-Wells choreographer, Sir Frederick Ashton, wrote numerous parts for Fonteyn and her partner, Robert Helpmann, with whom she danced from the 1930s to the 1940s.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Margot Fonteyn
The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.
—Margot Fonteyn
Topics: Expectations, Awareness, Acceptance, Realization, Realistic Expectations, Learning
Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.
—Margot Fonteyn
Topics: The Artist
Life forms illogical patterns. It is haphazard and
full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by;
for who knows whether any of them will ever return?
—Margot Fonteyn
Take your work seriously, but never yourself.
—Margot Fonteyn
Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable.
—Margot Fonteyn
Topics: Magic, Genius
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