Maina Gielgud

Maina Gielgud (born 14 January 1945) is a British former ballet dancer and a veteran ballet administrator. She was artistic director of The Australian Ballet from 1983 to 1996. She had a twenty-year career as a dancer in Europe and the United Kingdom. Gielgud directed the Royal Danish Ballet between 1997 and 1999. Until 2005, she held the artistic associate position at the Houston Ballet. She is a daughter of Lewis Gielgud and actress Zita Gordon and niece of actor John Gielgud. Early and personal life Maina Gielgud began dancing when she was six years old while living with her family in Brussels, Belgium. Her teacher at that time was Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat, the wife of renowned ballet dancer Nikolai Legat who taught her Swan Lake at the time. During her childhood she was inspired by such ballet greats as Maya Plisetskaya, Nina Vyroubova, Rosella Hightower and Galina Ulanova. Her favourite authors are Lewis Carroll, Marcel Proust, Iris Murdoch, Charles Dickens and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill. When it comes to choreographers, she likes Christopher Wheeldon, Alexei Ratmansky and Wayne McGregor while her favourite directors are Brook and Hall. She also enjoys listening to Maria Callas and watch acting done by Maggie Smith, Glenda Jackson, Judi Dench, Alec Guinness, Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley, John Hurt, Peter O'Toole and her uncle John. The movies that she is fascinated by are: Amour, Slumdog Millionaire, Quartet and The Bridge on the River Kwai. Career From 1952 to 1955, Gielgud trained in London and Paris with such artists as George Gontcharov, Olga Preobrajenska, Tamara Karsavina, Lydia Kyasht, Nadine Nicolaeva-Legat, Stanislas Idzikovski and Rachel Cameron. From 1956 to 1961, Gielgud trained in Cannes, Monte Carlo and Paris with such artists as Julie Sedova, Lubov Egorova, Victor Gsovski, Mischa Reznikov, Paul Goubé, Rosella Hightower and Marika Besobrasova. From 1961 to 1962 she danced in the corps de ballet of the Ballet de Roland Petit. In 1962 she was a member of the corps de ballet of the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas before dancing as a soloist in 1962 with the Ballet de l'Etoile de Milorad Miskovitch. In 1963 she was a soloist for the Hommage au Marquis de Cuevas before joining the Grand Ballet Classique de France as Première Danseuse until 1967. Until 1971 she was the principal artist at the Ballet du XXème Siècle Maurice Béjart. For two years she was the principal artist at the Staatsoper Ballet Berlin.