Where famous dancers and ballerinas grew up and lived

Alessandra Ferri1963–1980

📍 Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Alessandra Ferri was born in Milan in May 1963 and grew up in and around the city, later moving with her family to Monza, just to the north. Her parents did not go to the theatre, but from…

Alicia Alonso1920–1937

📍 El Vedado, Havana, Cuba

I was born Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martínez del Hoyo in Havana in December 1920, the youngest of four children. My father, Antonio Martínez, was an army officer and…

Alicia Markova1910–1914

📍 Finsbury Park, London N4, UK

I was born Lilian Alicia Marks in December 1910 in Finsbury Park, north London, the eldest of four daughters of Arthur Marks, who was Jewish, and Eileen, an Irish Catholic who had converted…

Anna Pavlova1912–1931

📍 Ivy House, North End Road, London NW11 7SX, UK

In 1912, with my partner and manager, Victor Dandré, I bought Ivy House, an elegant Georgian house on North End Road, on the edge of Hampstead Heath in north London. It had a huge old…

Carla Fracci1936–1954

📍 Milan, Lombardy, Italy

I was born in Milan in August 1936, the daughter of Luigi Fracci, a tram driver, and my mother, who worked in a factory. We were a working-class family and lived modestly. When the war…

Darcey Bussell1969–1987

📍 Lambeth, London, UK

Darcey Bussell was born Marnie Mercedes Darcey Pemberton Crittle in London in April 1969, the daughter of John Crittle, an Australian fashion designer, and Andrea Williams, an English model…

Diana Vishneva1976–1995

📍 Saint Petersburg, Russia

Diana Vishneva was born in Leningrad in July 1976, and grew up in the city of canals, palaces and white nights, home of the Kirov Ballet. At six she began going to a children's choreography…

Fanny Elssler1810–1830

📍 Gumpendorf, Vienna, Austria

I was born Franziska Elssler in June 1810 in Gumpendorf, then a village of craftsmen, gardens and small houses just outside the walls of Vienna. My father, Johann Florian Elssler, had been…

Galina Ulanova1952–1998

📍 Kotelnicheskaya Embankment 1/15, Moscow, Russia

In the early 1950s I moved into apartment 185 in the new tower on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, one of the seven great Stalin-era skyscrapers of Moscow, standing where the Yauza river meets…

Gene Kelly1912–1938

📍 Highland Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15206, USA

I was born in August 1912 in a rented house on the corner of Portland and Bryant streets in Highland Park, a leafy, hilly neighbourhood in the east of Pittsburgh, the third of five children…

Janet Collins1921–1940

📍 Los Angeles, CA, USA

I was born in New Orleans in March 1917, and when I was four, my family moved to Los Angeles, hoping for a better life away from the harsh segregation of the South. My father was a tailor…

Judy Garland1922–1926

📍 Judy Garland Museum, 2727 US Highway 169 South, Grand Rapids, MN 55744, USA

I was born Frances Ethel Gumm in June 1922 in Grand Rapids, a lumber and paper-mill town among the lakes and pine forests of northern Minnesota, the youngest of three girls. We lived in a…

Lisa1997–2011

📍 Bangkok, Thailand

Lalisa Manobal was born in 1997 in Buriram Province and grew up in Bangkok, raised by her Thai mother, Chitthip, and her Swiss stepfather, Marco Brüschweiler, a chef who settled in…

Lydia Lopokova1925–1946

📍 46 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD, UK

In August 1925 I married John Maynard Keynes, the economist, and came to live with him at 46 Gordon Square, a tall terraced house on a leafy square in Bloomsbury, in the heart of London. I…

Lynn Seymour1945–1954

📍 Vancouver, BC, Canada

I was born Berta Lynn Springbett in Wainwright, Alberta, in March 1939, and grew up in western Canada; my father was a dentist, and my brother became an athlete who ran for Canada. We moved…

Margot Fonteyn1923–1927

📍 Ealing, London W5, UK

I was born Margaret Evelyn Hookham in Reigate, Surrey, in May 1919, and my family called me Peggy. My father, Felix, was an engineer with the British-American Tobacco Company, and my…

Maria Tallchief1925–1933

📍 Fairfax, OK 74637, USA

I was born Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in January 1925 in Fairfax, a small oil town on the Osage reservation in northern Oklahoma. My father, Alexander Tall Chief, was Osage, and my mother…

Marianela Núñez1982–1997

📍 San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Marianela Núñez was born in March 1982 in San Martín, a busy working-class city on the north-western edge of Buenos Aires, and grew up there with her family. When she was three, her mother…

Mathilde Kschessinska1906–1917

📍 Kuybysheva Street 2-4, Saint Petersburg, Russia

In 1906 I moved into the house I had built for myself on the corner of Kronverksky Prospekt and Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street, on the Petrograd Side of Saint Petersburg, across the Neva from…

Maya Plisetskaya1932–1934

📍 Barentsburg, Svalbard, Norway

I was born in Moscow in November 1925 into a family of artists: my mother, Rachel Messerer, was a silent film actress, and her brother and sister, Asaf and Sulamith Messerer, were stars of…

Michael Jackson1988–2005

📍 Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California, USA

I bought Neverland in 1988 because I wanted to create the childhood I never had — a place where children could play and feel safe and experience the magic that had been taken from me when I…

Michaela DePrince1999–2012

📍 Cherry Hill, NJ, USA

I was born Mabinty Bangura in Sierra Leone in January 1995, during the country's civil war. After I lost my parents, I was left in an orphanage, where I was mistreated because of my…

Misty Copeland1985–2000

📍 San Pedro, Los Angeles, CA 90731, USA

Misty Copeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in September 1982, and grew up in California, the fourth of six children of Sylvia DelaCerna. Her childhood was unsettled: her mother moved…

Moira Shearer1926–1936

📍 Dunfermline, Fife, UK

I was born Moira Shearer King in January 1926 at Morton Lodge in Dunfermline, the old royal burgh in Fife, the only child of Harold King, a civil engineer, and Margaret, whose family name…

Natalia Makarova1940–1970

📍 Saint Petersburg, Russia

Natalia Romanovna Makarova was born in Leningrad in November 1940, months before the Nazi siege began, and grew up in the city as it slowly recovered from the war. Her childhood was spent…

Natalia Osipova1986–2004

📍 Moscow, Russia

Natalia Osipova was born in Moscow in May 1986 and grew up in the city. As a little girl she was a gymnast, starting at small studios at four or five, and she was determined and ambitious…

Ninette de Valois1898–1905

📍 Baltyboys, Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland

I was born Edris Stannus in June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an eighteenth-century manor house near Blessington, in the hills of County Wicklow, Ireland, the second daughter of Lieutenant…

Rowena Jackson1926–1934

📍 Invercargill, Southland, New Zealand

I was born in Invercargill, at the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island, in February 1926, and spent my early childhood there, in a flat, windswept town of wide streets, sheep country…

Suzanne Farrell1945–1960

📍 Mount Healthy, OH 45231, USA

Suzanne Farrell was born Roberta Sue Ficker in Cincinnati in August 1945, and grew up in Mount Healthy, a quiet town on the northern edge of the city, the youngest of three daughters. Her…

Svetlana Zakharova1979–1989

📍 Lutsk, Ukraine

Svetlana Zakharova was born in June 1979 in Lutsk, an old town on the Styr river in north-western Ukraine, known for its medieval Lubart's Castle. Her parents are Yuri and Halyna Zakharova…

Sylvie Guillem1965–1976

📍 Le Blanc-Mesnil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France

Sylvie Guillem was born in Paris in February 1965 and grew up in the working-class suburbs of the city. Her father was a car mechanic, and her mother was a gymnastics teacher, who coached…

Tamara Karsavina1894–1902

📍 Rossi Street, Saint Petersburg, Russia

I was born in Saint Petersburg in March 1885. My father, Platon Karsavin, was a principal dancer and mime of the Imperial Ballet, once the favourite pupil of Marius Petipa, and later a…

Tamara Rojo1974–1996

📍 Madrid, Spain

Tamara Rojo was born in May 1974 in Montreal, where her Spanish parents were living at the time, and when she was four months old the family returned to Spain and settled in Madrid. Her…

Tate McRae2003–2021

📍 Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Tate McRae was born in Calgary, Alberta, in July 2003 and grew up in this prairie city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, with its long, cold winters and big skies. Her mother, Tanja, is a…

Uliana Lopatkina1973–1983

📍 Kerch, Crimea

Uliana Lopatkina was born in October 1973 in Kerch, an ancient port city at the eastern tip of the Crimean peninsula, on the strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, with a history…