PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: dance
Italian composer and musician
Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer in the late Renaissance, the most important developer of the then new genre, the opera. He also did much to bring a “modern” secular spirit into church music....
Russian composer
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was the most popular Russian composer of all time. His music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies,...
Russian composer
Sergey Prokofiev was a 20th-century Russian (and Soviet) composer who wrote in a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti, film music, operas, ballets, and program pieces. Prokofiev...
Russian composer
Igor Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer whose work had a revolutionary impact on musical thought and sensibility just before and after World War I, and whose compositions remained a touchstone of modernism...
French composer
Claude Debussy was a French composer whose works were a seminal force in the music of the 20th century. He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects...
American dancer and film director
Herbert Ross was an American dancer and film director who made a significant contribution to the world of dance as a choreographer for ballet companies, the stage, and motion pictures before turning to...
American dancer
Martha Graham was an influential American dancer, teacher, and choreographer of modern dance whose ballets and other works were intended to “reveal the inner man.” Over more than 50 years she created more...
Hungarian composer
Béla Bartók was a Hungarian composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, and teacher, noted for the Hungarian flavour of his major musical works, which include orchestral works, string quartets, piano solos,...
Russian composer
Dmitri Shostakovich was a Russian composer, renowned particularly for his 15 symphonies, numerous chamber works, and concerti, many of them written under the pressures of government-imposed standards of...
French composer
Maurice Ravel was a French composer of Swiss-Basque descent, noted for his musical craftsmanship and perfection of form and style in such works as Boléro (1928), Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899;...
Russian-American choreographer
George Balanchine was the most influential choreographer of classical ballet in the United States in the 20th century. His works, characterized by a cool neoclassicism, include The Nutcracker (1954) and...
Russian ballet impresario
Serge Diaghilev was a Russian promoter of the arts who revitalized ballet by integrating the ideals of other art forms—music, painting, and drama—with those of the dance. From 1906 he lived in Paris, where...
Indian dancer
Birju Maharaj was an Indian dancer, a master of the classical dance form kathak and a leading exponent of the Kalka-Bindadin gharana (community of musicians sharing a distinctive musical style) of Lucknow....
Canadian ballet dancer
Karen Kain is a Canadian ballet dancer who became one of Canada’s finest and most internationally renowned dancers and a respected public figure. She continued working with the National Ballet of Canada...
American dancer, choreographer, and film director
Charles Walters was an American dancer, choreographer, and film director who was best known for his work on MGM musicals. His notable directorial credits included Easter Parade (1948) and The Unsinkable...
American composer
Aaron Copland was an American composer who achieved a distinctive musical characterization of American themes in an expressive modern style. Copland, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, was born in New...
American dancer and choreographer
Lester Horton was a dancer and choreographer credited with launching the modern dance movement in Los Angeles and for establishing the country’s first racially integrated dance company. In his short career...
Russian artist
Léon Bakst was a Jewish Russian artist who revolutionized theatrical design both in scenery and in costume. His designs for the Ballets Russes, especially during its heyday (1909–14), were opulent, innovative,...
American choreographer
Jerome Robbins was one of the most popular and imaginative American choreographers of the 20th century. Robbins was first known for his skillful use of contemporary American themes in ballets and Broadway...
Russian dancer and choreographer
Michel Fokine was a dancer and choreographer who profoundly influenced the 20th-century classical ballet repertoire. In 1905 he composed the solo The Dying Swan for the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova....
American dancer
Isadora Duncan was an American dancer whose teaching and performances helped to free ballet from its conservative restrictions and presaged the development of modern expressive dance. She was among the...
Russian ballerina
Anna Pavlova was a Russian ballerina, the most-celebrated dancer of her time. Pavlova studied at the Imperial School of Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre from 1891, joined the Imperial Ballet in 1899, and...
Russian dancer
Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian-born ballet dancer of almost legendary fame, celebrated for his spectacular leaps and sensitive interpretations. After a brilliant school career, Nijinsky became a soloist...
Native Hawaiian teacher, dancer, chanter, and composer
Edith Kanaka‘ole dedicated her life to the preservation of Hawaiian language and culture. A Native Hawaiian herself, Aunty Edith (as she was often called) ensured the continuation of Hawaiian traditions...
American actress
Shirley MacLaine is an outspoken American actress and dancer known for her deft portrayals of charmingly eccentric characters and for her interest in mysticism and reincarnation. Beaty’s mother was a drama...
South African dancer
Monica Mason is a South African ballet dancer and dance administrator known for her multifaceted association with the British Royal Ballet, which spanned more than a half century. As a dancer, she coupled...
American dancer
Doris Humphrey was a pioneer in American modern dance and an innovator in technique, choreography, and theory of dance movement. Humphrey was an avid and talented student of dance from an early age. In...
French author
Théophile Gautier was a poet, novelist, critic, and journalist whose influence was strongly felt in the period of changing sensibilities in French literature—from the early Romantic period to the aestheticism...
Indian dancer and singer
T. Balasaraswati was an Indian dancer and singer in the Carnatic (South Indian) tradition, who was one of the 20th century’s foremost exponents of the bharata natyam style of classical dance. She was instrumental...
Indian dancer and theosophist
Rukmini Devi Arundale was an Indian classical dancer and follower of theosophy, best known for catalyzing the renaissance of the bharata natyam dance form and founding the Kalakshetra Foundation in Madras...
American dancer and choreographer
Kyle Abraham is an American contemporary dancer and choreographer who founded (2006) the company Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion (A/I/M; later A.I.M.). He is a master at mixing hip-hop, street, and modern...
American musician
Tommy Dorsey was an American musician who—both independently and with his brother Jimmy—led several of the most popular big bands of the swing era. He was also a highly respected and influential trombonist....
American dancer
Amar Ramasar is an American ballet dancer who was a principal dancer with New York City Ballet (NYCB; 2009–18 and 2019–22), known for his versatility, exuberance, and athleticism. Ramasar was of Indo-Trinidadian...
American dancer
Misty Copeland is an American ballet dancer who, in 2015, became the first African American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT). Misty Copeland and her siblings grew up with...
American choreographer and dancer
Justin Peck is an American ballet dancer and choreographer who earned acclaim as a soloist but was better known for crafting ballets in which complex structures frame clearly articulated classical steps....
American choreographer and dancer
Bill T. Jones is an American choreographer and dancer who, with Arnie Zane, created the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. Jones was the 10th of 12 children of migrant farmworkers. His parents moved...
American dancer
Michael Flatley is an American dancer who transformed traditional Irish dancing into a popular spectator attraction. Flatley, whose grandmother was a champion Irish dancer, began taking dancing lessons...
American choreographer and dancer
Anna Sokolow was an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher noted for her socially and politically conscious works and her unique blend of dance and theatre choreography. She is also recognized for...
American performance artist and author
Laurie Anderson is an American performance artist, composer, and writer whose work explores a remarkable range of media and subject matter. Anderson began studying classical violin at five years of age...
French dancer and choreographer
Jules Perrot was a French virtuoso dancer and master choreographer who was celebrated internationally for creating some of the most enduring ballets of the Romantic period. Jules Perrot first drew attention...
Japanese choreographer
Michio Ito was a Japanese choreographer, dancer, and scenic director for theatre and film who established himself as a pioneer of modern dance in Europe, New York City, and Los Angeles during the 1920s...
American dancer
Raven Wilkinson was an American dancer who became the first Black woman to dance with a major classical ballet company. Wilkinson was interested in dance from a young age. After her mother, who had studied...
American musician
Jimmy Dorsey was an American musician who—both independently and with his brother Tommy—led one of the most popular big bands of the swing era. He was also a highly talented saxophone and clarinet player....
French composer
Jean-Baptiste Lully was an Italian-born French court and operatic composer who from 1662 completely controlled French court music and whose style of composition was imitated throughout Europe. Born of...
Russian dancer and choreographer
Alexei Ratmansky is a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer known for his exceptional musicality, seemingly limitless energy, and stylistic versatility. As artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet (2004–08),...
American dancer and choreographer
Mark Morris is an American dancer and choreographer who formed his own modern dance company, the Mark Morris Dance Group. He was noted for his innovative and, at times, controversial works. At age eight,...
British-born dancer and choreographer
Christopher Wheeldon is a British-born ballet soloist and choreographer, known for his work with New York City Ballet, its connected institution, the School of American Ballet, and the Royal Ballet, London....
French dancer and musician
Arthur Saint-Léon was a French dancer, choreographer, violinist, and inventor of a method of dance notation, celebrated as the choreographer of the ballet Coppélia. The son of Léon Michel, a dancer who...
Russian ballerina
Agrippina Vaganova was a Russian ballerina and teacher who developed a technique and system of instruction based on the classical style of the Imperial Russian Ballet but which also incorporated aspects...
French composer
Erik Satie was a French composer whose spare, unconventional, often witty style exerted a major influence on 20th-century music, particularly in France. Satie studied at the Paris Conservatory, dropped...