Ninette de Valois

Dame Ninette de Valois OM CH DBE was an AngloIrish dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. She began life in Ireland as Edris Stannus. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilevs Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and still one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the godmother of English and Irish ballet.

Ninette de Valois was born onJune 1898, near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO, a British Army officer, by his marriage to Elizabeth Graydon Smith, a distinguished glassmaker known as Lilith Stannus. She was named Edris and in 1905 moved to England, to live with her grandmother in Kent.

Source: Wikipedia