Henry Danton, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetHenry Danton
Ballet dancer, teacher
Date of Birth: 30-Mar-1919
Place of Birth: Bedford, England, United Kingdom
Profession: teacher
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About Henry Danton
- Henry Danton (born Henry David Boileau Down; 30 March 1919) is a British dancer, teacher, and stager of classical ballet. Danton was a prolific dancer in London during and immediately after World War II.
- In the UK, Danton performed as a soloist in the International Ballet partnering Mona Inglesby in Les Sylphides and Swan Lake 1943–44, and with the Sadler's Wells Ballet 1944–46, where he appeared with Margot Fonteyn, Beryl Grey, and Violetta Elvin in the Rose Adagio and Pamela May in Les Sylphides and created leading roles in a number of works, most notably in Sir Frederick Ashton's Symphonic Variations partnering Moira Shearer.Privately educated with Judith Espinosa, he passed the Royal Academy of Dancing's four exams with honours winning the Adeline Genée Silver Medal after just 18 months of classical ballet training.
- During the war Danton studied intensively with the Russian teacher Vera Volkova.In 1946, he began his international dancing career travelling first to Paris to work with some of the leading Russian teachers of the day, including Victor Gsovsky, and the Imperial Russian Ballet ballerinas Olga Preobrajenska, Lubov Egorova and Mathilde Kschessinskaya.As a dancer, Danton appeared with touring ensembles across the UK, Europe, Australasia and South America partnering ballerinas Svetlana Beriosova, Elsa Marianne von Rosen, Colette Marchand, Celia Franca, Irene Skorik, Lycette Darsonval, Sonia Arova, Mia Slavenska, Lynne Golding and others.
- As a teacher and balletmaster, Danton has worked extensively across the US and South America for more than 65 years, teaching, coaching and staging classical repertoire.An important influence on the nascent national ballet companies in Caracas, Venezuela, and Bogota, Colombia, he was also the first classical ballet teacher to be employed at the Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, and the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, and taught at the Fokine School of Ballet, Ballet Arts, Carnegie Hall, and the Juilliard School in New York City.In 2013, at aged 95, Danton continued to teach in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and also worked as a guest teacher at a number of schools and colleges including Belhaven University, where he staged Mikhail Fokine's Les Sylphides in the autumn of 2013.
- Turning 100 in 2019, he was still working.
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