Alicia Markova

Dame Alicia Markova DBE was an English ballerina and a choreographer, director and teacher of classical ballet. Most noted for her career with Sergei Diaghilevs Ballets Russes and touring internationally, she was widely considered to be one of the greatest classical ballet dancers of the twentieth century. She was the first British dancer to become the principal dancer of a ballet company and, with Dame Margot Fonteyn, is one of only two English dancers to be recognised as a prima ballerina assoluta. Markova was a founder dancer of the Rambert Dance Company, The Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and was cofounder and director of the English National Ballet.

Markova was born as Lilian Alicia Marks onDecember 1910. Her father, Alfred, was Jewish by birth her mother, Eileen, converted to Judaism. The family lived in a two bedroom flat in Finsbury Park.

Source: Wikipedia