Irina Jacobson

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Jewish Women and Ballet in the United States

While fewer Jewish women went into ballet than into modern dance, those interested in ballet studied with gentile classical teacher-choreographers, such as Mikhai Fokine, Michael Mordkin, and Adolf Bolm. They performed in the main ballet companies, including the American Ballet Theatre, the Metropolitan Opera Ballet, George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, and even Radio City Music Hall’s ballet company.

Irina Jacobson

Irina Jacobson, the wife of the prolific and innovative Soviet-Russian choreographer, Leonid Jacobson, was a living archive of his scores of radical and innovative ballets. A former soloist with the Kirov Ballet and the protégé of Agrippina Vaganova, she emigrated to the West in 1982 and was in demand internationally as a teacher and stager of Jacobson’s works, as well as of Romantic and Classical ballets.

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