Ivan Novikoff

Ivan Novikoff (August 26, 1899 – March 20, 2002) was a ballet master.

Born in Kazan, Russia, Novikoff studied at the Imperial Ballet School. He fled to China because of the Russian Revolution of 1917 at age 17, where he taught dance to the children of Russian soldiers.

In 1923, he immigrated to the United States, where he continued teaching ballet until his death. After moving from San Francisco to Seattle, he founded the Novikoff School of Russian-American Ballet in the early 1930s and received the Governor's Heritage Award (of the state of Washington) in 1989. Novikoff followed in the footsteps of another preeminent ballet teacher Dame Ninette de Valois, founder of the Royal Ballet of London.

Among his students in Seattle were Robert Joffrey[1] and Gerald Arpino.[2]

Sources

  1. ↑ Anawalt, Sasha. The Joffrey Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company. New York: Scribner, 1996. Pg 27.
  2. ↑ Ibid. Page 37.


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