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Who would have thought that the British, of all unexotic peoples, would turn out to be good at ballet; both at dancing and choreographing it? One minute they could do next to nothing of either. The next the world knew about Britain and ballet was that this damp, dour island off the Continent had a company as famous as any in the world.
The newly formed Vic-Wells Ballet gave its first full evening’s programme in the — for ballet — unglamorous Old Vic in 1931. By 1949, as Sadler’s Wells, it was thought glamorous enough to appear in the world’s most star-struck opera house; with Fonteyn and the Sleeping Beauty opening its first season at the New York Metropolitan. Zoe Anderson has written what will immediately become the new standard history.
In the British past, there were some precedents.
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