Did you know that the legendary choreographer and dancer who revived the French ballet, Serge Lifar was Ukrainian?

One of the outstanding talented dancers of the 20th century. He believed that ballet was primarily a dance, an emotion. Ballet was his whole life to him. Serge Lifar The greatest ballet dancer, Ukrainian dancer and choreographer. Thanks to him, the ballet of the Paris Opera has become the most professional and popular around the world.



The fate of Serzh was not long connected with Ukraine. But wherever he lived, he always said, “Nothing is more important than Kiev.” He became director of the Grand Opera in Paris at the age of 24. He was honorary president of the National Dance Rada at UNESCO. He was the founder of the Grand Opera Dance Institute and lectured at the Sorbonne. Professor, director, choreographer, writer, critic. Despite the difficult time, the artist has always been devoted to music and dance.



Serge Lifar is an outstanding Ukrainian dancer Serge Lifar was born in Kiev in 1904. At the age of 8, his parents gave him to study at the Imperial Alexander Kyiv Gymnasium. The boy was very talented, fond of music, singing, theater. I wanted to be a pianist. But the civil war changed all the plans of young Serge. To stop the Bolsheviks, General Dragomirov gives the order to throw 50 gymnasium students into battle. Among them was Serge Lifar. He was wounded in the arm and began to develop gangrene. The pianist profession could be forgotten.



At the age of 16, he became one of the students of Bronislava Nijinskaya, who at that time founded the ballet studio “Motion School”. But a year later, Serge Lifar was forced to leave his native Kiev. He could no longer see what the Bolsheviks had turned into his beloved Kiev and Ukraine. And Serge Lifar went to Paris. There he met Sergei Diaghilev, who noticed the talent of the young man. But to further improve the skills of the young dancer Diaghilev sends Lifar to Turin to Enrico Chechetti.



In 1925, Serge Lifar became the lead dancer in Ballets Russes. In 1929 Sergey Diaghilev died. French ballet patron Jacques Rouchet invites Serge Lifar to the position of director. Thanks to Serge Lifar, the French ballet is once again becoming popular and the Paris Opera regains its importance in the art world. During the leadership of Serge Lifar, Parisian ballet not only became popular, it dictated fashion and introduced new rules to dance.



Thanks to Serge Lifar, the Paris Ballet received a second life, Serge Lifar remained loyal to ballet even during World War II and the Nazi occupation of France. Because of his political views, he became a collaborator and remained director of the corpse. After the liberation of France and all of Europe from the Nazis, Serge Lifar was removed from office. He was then allowed to return to the Paris Opera Ballet, but his reappointment provoked resistance in the corpse. And despite the success of the ballet in America, the corpse and the entire staff of the Paris Opera continued to sabotage Serge Lifar. In 1958 he left the Paris Opera.



After leaving the ballet, Serge Lifar continued his scientific activity. He remained faithful to the theatre and ballet. Serge Lifar died in 1986. Countess Lillan Alefeldt-Laurwig founded the Serge Lifar Foundation in 1989. Later, in 1993, his memoirs were published in which his main role in the ballet Icarus occupied a special place. In 2004, Ukrposhta issued a name stamp in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of an outstanding Ukrainian dancer. In 1994, the First International Lifar Ballet Competition was held. It took place on the stage of the National Opera of Ukraine. In 2011, the seventh International Lifar Ballet Competition was held in Donetsk.