Olga Preobrajenska

This article is about ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet. For Russian actress and film director, see Olga Preobrazhenskaya (director).

Olga Preobrajenskaya as Anne in the Petipa/Schenck Bluebeard. St. Petersburg, 1896

Olga Iosifovna Preobrajenska (Russian: Ольга Иосифовна Преображенская Ol'ga Iosifovna Preobrazhenskaya) (2 February [O.S. 21 January] 1871 – 27 December 1962) was probably the best loved ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet.

She was born in Saint Petersburg as Ol'ga Iosifovna Preobrazhenskaya (the final syllable of her surname was dropped for professional purposes, and she used the French transliteration Preobrajenska). In 1879, she joined the Imperial Ballet School, where her teachers were Nicholas Legat, Enrico Cecchetti, and Christian Johansson. After 10 years of intensive training, she moved to the Mariinsky Theatre, where she would work for the next quarter a century. In 1900, she earned the title prima ballerina.

After the Russian Revolution, Preobrajenska dedicated her life to teaching new generations of dancers, first in Petrograd, then in Paris from 1918. Every major mid-20th-century Western dancer visited Preobrajenska for lessons. Tamara Toumanova, Margot Fonteyn, Irina Baronova, Gillian Lynne and Vladimir Dokoudovsky were among the many dancers she coached, and through her students, the Preobrajenska method was soon disseminated in some of the top ballet academies of Europe and New York. The Preobrajenska method emphasised purity and elegance of movement.

Olga Preobrajenska died in France in 1962 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.

External links

• The Ballerina Gallery - Olga Preobrajenska

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Persondata
Name	Preobrajenska, Olga
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1871
Place of birth
Date of death	27 December 1962
Place of death