August Bournonville

The son of a famous French dancer and choreographer, August Bournonville was born in Copenhagen in 1805 and trained for the dance with the Royal Danish Ballet. In 1826 he moved to Paris to study at the Paris Opera but returned to Denmark two years later. The rest of his career was spent at the afficher plus Royal Danish Ballet as dancer, choreographer, and director. He created more than 60 dances for the company, utilizing techniques and subjects he had learned in both Paris and Denmark. Among his surviving works, the most well known include Valdemar (1835), La Sylphide (1836), The Fisherman and His Bride (1842), Napoli (1842), Far from Denmark (1860), and From Siberia to Moscow (1876). Bournonville's choreography employs a great amount of dancing en pointe. It also is noted for its precise technique, romantic style, bourgeois values, and equality of the sexes. Dance historians consider him to be one of the most important, if not the most important, choreographers of the nineteenth century. Bournonville died in 1879. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins