I don't know how many others will remember Mona Inglesby's International Ballet, but this programme at 4 pm today will be of great interest to me. The first ballet performances I saw as a young child were by this company, though probably just post-war rather than during the blackout. Mona Inglesby was my first crush - I must have been all of eight years old! It started a lifetime's passion, and also nurtured my love of music.
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I think they may have visited a cinema in Woolwich a few years after WW2. I certainly saw some top rank dancers when a friend and her mother took me to some ballet there. I was about 14 and it helped the love ofmusic which I already had to developOriginally posted by Mary Chambers View Post
Thanks Mary,I'll listen on iPlayer tomorrow. -
Well, I enjoyed the programme very much. It brought back some very distant memories, not least Massine and Gaieté Parisienne, which even as a young child I thought was rubbish! I loved most of what they did, though. I must have seen the dancers who spoke today, but the only names that rang any bells were Massine and Sergueff (it was spelt thus). Of course, I had no idea of the background of the company at the time. The way that the pioneering Mona Inglesby was ignored by the establishment is very shocking.
EDIT: i think I must have posted at the same time as you, salymap. I always saw them in a proper theatre - I think it was the Royal Court in Liverpool. I didn't know till I heard this programme that they performed in all sorts of places, including cinemas.
It was very probably the first live orchestra I ever heard. My mother told me she started taking me to ballet when I was five, though I don't remember as far back as that.Last edited by Mary Chambers; 10-12-12, 20:27.Comment
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