Irina Baronova

Irina Baronova (1919–2008) was one of the three legendary 'baby ballerinas' of the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, who created an international dance sensation in the 1930s and 1940s. Escaping the Russian revolution, Baronova and her family left St Petersburg to live in Bucharest, where she began her dance training, then in Paris. At just eleven years old, she made her debut as a soloist at the Opéra. In 1932, at thirteen, she was engaged by George Balanchine for his Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Her skill and extreme youth yielded a marketing coup for the company, capturing the imagination of both the press and public. She danced with the Ballets Russes companies until 1939, performing in Australia in 1938–1939 in productions including Les Sylphides. 'The audiences were absolutely mad about us, we had enormous success and the people were so hospitable and friendly,' she later recalled. From 1941 she appeared with the American Ballet Theatre, as a guest ballerina with other companies, on Broadway and in films. After retiring, she lived in London with her husband, theatrical agent Cecil Tennant, and their children. Urged by Dame Margot Fonteyn, she emerged from retirement to serve on the technical committee of the Royal Academy of Dance and take up teaching. In 1996 she received the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award from the Royal Academy of Dance for her outstanding services to ballet. She lived the last eight years of her life in Byron Bay, New South Wales, where she completed her memoirs, Irina: Ballet, Life and Love (2005). The year before she died she worked as a consultant with The Australian Ballet in Melbourne.