Prima ballerinas

Yvonne_Chouteau

Myra Yvonne Chouteau () (March 7, 1929 – January 24, 2016) was an American ballerina and one of the "Five Moons" or Native prima ballerinas of Oklahoma. She was the only child of Corbett Edward and Lucy Annette Chouteau. She was born March 7, 1929, in Fort Worth, Texas. In 1943, she became the youngest dancer ever accepted to the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, where she worked for fourteen years. In 1962, she and her husband, Miguel Terekhov, founded the first fully accredited university dance program in the United States, the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma. A member of the Shawnee Tribe, she also had French ancestry, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Maj. Jean Pierre Chouteau. From the Chouteau family of St. Louis, he established Oklahoma's oldest European-American settlement at the present site of Salina in 1796. She grew up in Vinita, Oklahoma.

Monique_Loudières

Monique Loudières (born 15 April 1956) is a French ballet dancer and teacher. A member of the Paris Opera Ballet from 1967, she received the status of principal dancer in 1982. After retiring from the stage in 1996, she continued to accept invitations until 2010. From 2001 to 2008, she was artistic director at the École supérieure de danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower.

Aurélie_Dupont

Aurélie Dupont (born 15 January 1973 in Paris) is a French ballet dancer who performed with the Paris Opera Ballet as an Étoile.
She began her career in dance in 1983 when she entered the Paris Opera Ballet School (L’École de danse de l’Opéra de Paris). She joined the company at age sixteen in 1989, and became a première danseuse in December 1996. Dupont was promoted to star dancer (Étoile) in 1998 after her performance as Kitri in Paris Opera Ballet's revival of Nureyev's production of Don Quixote. She has also starred in Paris Opera Ballet's revival of Nureyev's version of The Sleeping Beauty.In 2010, Cédric Klapisch released a documentary about Dupont, L'espace d'un instant, which had been made over the previous two years.Dupont formally retired from the Paris Opera stage following a performance of Kenneth MacMillan's Manon on 18 May 2015. It was announced on 5 Feb 2016 that she would be the next director of dance for the Paris Opera Ballet after the resignation of Benjamin Millepied. In June 2022, Dupont announced that she would leave the company the following month.

Moira_Shearer

Moira Shearer King, Lady Kennedy (17 January 1926 – 31 January 2006), was an internationally renowned Scottish ballet dancer and actress. She was famous for her performances in Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948) and The Tales of Hoffman (1951) and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960).
She has been portrayed by Shannon Davidson in the short film Òran na h-Eala (2022) which explores her life-changing decision to appear in The Red Shoes.

Gelsey_Kirkland

Gelsey Kirkland (born December 29, 1952) is an American ballerina. She received early ballet training at the School of American Ballet. Kirkland joined the New York City Ballet in 1968 at age 15, at the invitation of George Balanchine. She was promoted to soloist in 1969, and principal in 1972. She went on to create leading roles in many of the great twentieth century ballets by Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Antony Tudor, including Balanchine's revival of The Firebird, Robbins' Goldberg Variations, and Tudor's The Leaves are Fading.
Balanchine re-choreographed his version of Stravinsky's The Firebird specifically for her. She left the New York City Ballet to join the American Ballet Theatre in 1974 as a principal dancer.Kirkland appeared in the dance role of Clara Stahlbaum in Mikhail Baryshnikov's 1977 televised production of The Nutcracker, which Baryshnikov also acted in as the titular Nutcracker/Prince. She left the American Ballet Theatre in 1984.