ABSTRACT

Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton were the two main choreograph' ers who worked on me - and at me - when I was a dancer. In their manner of composition, in their manner of getting what they wanted out of artists, they had very different methods. De Valois was cold and reserved, outwardly sure of herself, so that one was never exposed to her personal feelings or a sense of participation in the creation of a ballet. Ashton was hot and subject to violent emotional whims which would sometimes hinder, sometimes forward, his work, but with which nobody in the company could resist sympathy, so exposed and tender were his sensibilities.