Georgina Parkinson

Georgina Parkinson was an English ballet dancer and ballet mistress who had a distinguished career with The Royal Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre. She was born in Brighton, England, on 20 August 1938 and attended a convent school in Rottingdean, where she took weekly ballet classes. She won a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells Ballet School (now The Royal Ballet School) in 1957, after an audition with Ninette de Valois, the founder of The Royal Ballet. She graduated from the school with a performance as Odette in Swan Lake. She joined The Royal Ballet in 1957 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1962 by Frederick Ashton, the director of the company. She was known for her beauty, elegance and versatility, and danced a wide range of classical and contemporary roles. She was a frequent collaborator of choreographer Kenneth MacMillan, who created roles for her in Symphony (1963), Romeo and Juliet (1965), Anastasia (1967) and Enigma Variations (1968). She also worked with Bronislava Nijinska, who cast her as La Garconne in Les Biches (1964) and as a soloist in Les Noces (1966). She also created roles in Frederick Ashton's Monotones I (1966) and George Balanchine's Apollo (1966). In 1978, she accepted the invitation to become a ballet mistress at the American Ballet Theatre for a year, before assuming the position permanently in 1980. She coached many dancers in both classical and modern repertoire, and was especially admired for her work on MacMillan's ballets. She also performed character roles with the American Ballet Theatre, such as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, Madame Larina in Onegin and Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty. She appeared as herself in the film Black Swan (2010), giving instructions to Natalie Portman's character. She was married to photographer Roy Round, whom she met while working on a Vogue magazine shoot. They had one son, Adam Round, who became a musician. They divorced in 1983. She died of complications from cancer on 18 December 2009 in New York City, at the age of 71. She was widely mourned by the ballet world as a dancer of exceptional grace and humanity.