Nina Novak (23 March 1923 – 15 March 2022) was a Polish prima ballerina, choreographer, ballet director, and dance teacher.[1][2]
Nina Novak | |
|---|---|
 Novak (on left) in May 1998 | |
| Born | Janina Nowak 23 March 1923 |
| Died | 15 March 2022 (aged 98) |
| Occupation(s) | ballet dancer and choreographer |
Biography
editNovak was born in Warsaw, Poland on 23 March 1923, as Janina Nowak.[3] She began her study of Ballet at the age of eight at the Warsaw Opera Ballet School.[4]
From 1937 to 1939, she was a soloist of the Polish Representative Ballet, and after the war in the ballet groups of Feliks Parnell and Mikołaj Kopiński.
In the late 1940s, she left for the United States, where she became a prima ballerina, ballet master and teacher at Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo.[5] After finishing her career in 1960s, she left for Venezuela, where she opened her own ballet school, and since 1991 she has been the director of her own ballet school in Caracas, Ballet Clásico de Caracas.
In Poland, she made guest appearances in 1961 in Warsaw and Poznań in the ballets Giselle and Swan Lake, and in 1978 in the Coppélia ballet at the Grand Theater in Warsaw.
On 25 February 2020, the book Taniec na gruzach. Nina Novak w rozmowie z Wiktorem Krajewskim was published, consisting of an interview with Nina Novak by Wiktor Krajewski.[6] She was an honorary citizen of five cities in the United States.
Awards
editIn 2017, she was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Death
editNovak died in East Norriton Township, Pennsylvania, eight days shy of her 99th birthday, on March 15, 2022.
References
edit- ^ Nacional, El (15 March 2022). "Murió Nina Novak, pionera del ballet en Venezuela". EL NACIONAL (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 March 2022.
- ^ "La guerra se gana bailando - Qué Hay". 4 March 2016. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
- ^ Turska, Irena, Almanach baletu polskiego, 1945-1974, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Kraków, Poland, 1983, p. 171. ISBN 83-224-0220-1
- ^ Engstead, John (1949). "Nina Novak, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, U.S., c. 1949". Valrene Tweedie Collection of Dance Photographs from the Ballets Russes.
- ^ Koegler, Horst (1977). The Concise Oxford dictionary of ballet. Internet Archive. London; New York : Oxford University Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-0-19-311314-5.
- ^ "Taniec na gruzach. Nina Novak w rozmowie z Wiktorem Krajewskim | Wiktor Krajewski, Nina Novak". Lubimyczytać.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 16 March 2022.
External links
edit- Nina Novak at IMDb