Anna Istomina
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Anna Istomina, aka Audree Thomas, aka Audree Ismailoff (9 October 1925–10 January 2014)[1] was a Canadian-born ballet dancer and teacher.
Early life and performing career
Born Audree Rose Thomas in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Thomas studied ballet with June Roper, a Texas native who had found her way to Vancouver in the early 1930s and, over the next ten years, sent several students into professional ballet companies.[2] She auditioned for Léonide Massine in Seattle in January 1944, and, at age 14, became the youngest member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, under the stage name, Anna Istomina. In a few months she was dancing the "Swan Lake" pas de trois with Rosella Hightower and Roland Guerard and a pas de deux, as Princess Turandot, with Massine himself as the Unknown Prince, in "Vienna 1814."[3] With the Ballet Russe Thomas toured North and South America extensively, ultimately dancing most of the roles in the repertoire.[4] She was part of the landmark production of "Rodeo," with music by Aaron Copland and choreography by Agnes de Mille, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera on October 16, 1942.[3] She met the Governor General of Canada after a Montreal performance in the title role of "The Snow Maiden."[5] By the end of her time with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, she and Leon Danielian were the subject of much critical praise for their performances of the Bluebird Variations from Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty."[3]
Thomas left the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo after the 1943-44 season and commenced fourteen years of dancing in a variety of contexts and companies. She joined Massine’s short-lived Ballet Russe Highlights.[4] She danced on Broadway as premiére danseuse, in "La Vie Parisienne" (1945).[6] During the late 1940s Thomas did two seasons as highly celebrated Guest Prima Ballerina for Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.[4]There she performed both the classic repertoire and new productions created by Margarita Wallmann, including Wallmann's remake of the Balanchine/Stravinsky "The Card Game." Here she played the leading role, the Queen of Hearts, while in an earlier performance, with Ballet Russe, she had been relegated to the Eight of Hearts.[3] Following a Buenos Aires performance as Odette in "Swan Lake," she was sought out by Argentina’s First Lady, Eva Perón.[3] She toured as First Soloist, after Slavenska herself, with Mia Slavenska’s Ballet Variante, running the company for a time and dancing Slavenska's roles while Slavenska was recovering from an injury incurred in an onstage fall.[7] [8] In 1950 she appeared in Massachusetts’ famed Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, performing Petipa's choreography from "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Nutcracker," and Massine's "Pavane" (Ravel).[9] In 1952 she danced with Ballet Russe Concerts, a touring off-shoot of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.[10] She was a headliner, under the name Audree Thomas, in a show called "Carnival" at Radio City Music Hall, where she danced a pas de deux with George Zoritch, one of the Russian mainstays of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.[11] She later performed as Guest Prima Ballerina with the Ballet Nacional de Venezuela, returning to Venezuela to teach.[4]
Marriage
Thomas married fellow dancer, Sergei Ismailoff, in Vancouver, in 1948.[12] Born in Moscow in 1912, Ismailoff had escaped Europe in the early stages of the Second World War. He and Thomas had danced together in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Their older son Tony, born in 1949, became a police officer in White Plains, New York; Greg, born in 1956, was dancing his way up the ranks of the ballet world, as Gregory Ismailov (note spelling), before dying tragically of AIDs at age thirty, shortly after joining Maria Tallchief’s Chicago City Ballet.
Teaching
Thomas retired from performance in 1958 and turned to full time teaching, under the name Audree Ismailoff, in dance schools in Great Neck and White Plains, New York, that she and her husband had started.[4] Following Sergei’s death in 1969 she continued her teaching at the Dance Academy of White Plains.[4]
Later years and death
Thomas retired from teaching in 1985 and returned to British Columbia, living in West Vancouver.[4] She set dancing aside except for occasional guest teaching at local dance schools[13]. Struck by lymphoma in her later years, she moved to Gettysburg, PA, to live with her son, dying there on January 10, 2014, at the age of 88.[1]
Ballet Bay, B.C.
Beyond her distinguished career as a dancer, Audree Thomas is the namesake of a small bay on remote Nelson Island, 60 miles up the B.C. coast from Vancouver, on the traditional lands of the Sechelt First Nation.[14] Shortly after she joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, her parents, Harry and Marjorie (Midge) Thomas, set up a homestead there. Midge called their new home Ballet Bay, the name becoming official a few years later.[15] Harry named his two boats in honor of his daughter: Istomina[16] and Small Fry (the role that Thomas danced with Ian Gibson, another Vancouverite, in Massine’s "The New Yorker," in her first hometown performance after joining the company).[17] Her ashes were scattered in Ballet Bay.[18] A plaque in memory of “The Ballerina of Ballet Bay” sits on a low rock bluff at the back of the bay.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Memorial_plaque_for_Audree_Thomas_Ismailoff_%28Anna_Istomina%29_in_Ballet_Bay%2C_British_Columbia%2C_Canada.jpg/220px-Memorial_plaque_for_Audree_Thomas_Ismailoff_%28Anna_Istomina%29_in_Ballet_Bay%2C_British_Columbia%2C_Canada.jpg)
References
- ^ a b "Gettysburg Times". Jan 13, 2014.
- ^ Windreich, Leland (January 1, 1999). June Roper: Ballet Starmaker. Toronto, Canada: Dance Collection Danse Press. ISBN 978-0929003344.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ a b c d e Windreich, Leland (1978). Dance Encounters; Leland Windreich Writing on Dance. Toronto, Canada: Arts Inter-Media Canada/Dance Collection Danse (published 1998). p. 31. ISBN 0-929003-30-6.
- ^ a b c d e f g Windreich, Leland (2000). Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada. Toronto, Canada: Dance Collection Danse. p. 582. ISBN 092900342X.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ "Young Vancouver Dancer Wins Fame In the Ballet World". Vancouver Daily Province. March 29, 1944. p. 10.
- ^ "La Vie Parisienne". Internet Broadway Data Base. Retrieved January 25, 2024.
- ^ "Ballerina Injured in Fall, Danseuse Will Star Tonight". The Post-Standard (Syracuse). January 21, 1950. p. 9.
- ^ Near, Grace M. (February 7, 1950). "Canadian Girl Is Starred In Enchanting Ballet Performance". Newspaper name unknown, Niagara Falls, Canada.
- ^ "A Gala Dance Event: La Meri and Peter di Falco; Myra Kinch; Ted Shawn; Anna Istomina". Jacob's Pillow Dance. January 25, 2024. Retrieved January 25, 2024.
- ^ Anderson, Jack (1981). The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Dance Horizons. ISBN 9780903102650.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ ""Carnival" show ad". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 19, 1955. p. 10.
- ^ "Monday Bride in Vancouver". The Vancouver Daily Province. March 2, 1948. p. 9.
- ^ ""Summer Dance 87" Brochure in Audree Ismailoff Papers, New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Call number (S) *MGZMD 363". Peggy White Dance Theatre, Richmond, BC. 1987.
- ^ Scott, Andrew (2006). The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Placenames. Madeira Park, BC, Canada: Harbour Publishing. p. 56.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ "Ballet Bay". BC Geographical Names. January 25, 2024. Retrieved January 25, 2024.
- ^ Southern, Karen (1987). The Nelson Island Story. Surrey, BC, Canada: Hancock House Publishers. p. 90. ISBN 0-88839-196-X.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Bligh, Stanley (January 22, 1941). "'New Yorker' Delights Ballet Fans". The Vancouver Sun. p. 3.
- ^ Walker, Murray (2000). The Encyclopedia of British Columbia. Madeira Park, BC, Canada: Harbour Publishing. ISBN 9781550172003.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
- Anderson, Jack, The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo (Dance Horizons, 1981)
- Massine, Leonide, My Life in Ballet (Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1968)
- Windreich, Leland, Dance Encounters; Leland Windreich Writing on Dance (Dance Collection Danse, Toronto, 1998)
- Windreich, Leland, “Audree Thomas,” in Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada (Dance Collection Danse, Toronto, 2000)
- Windreich, Leland, June Roper: Ballet Starmaker, (Dance Collection Danse, Toronto, 1999)
- Audree Ismailoff papers, (S) *MGZMD 363. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.
- “Audree Ismailoff,” obituary, Gettysburg Times, January 13, 2014, https://www.gettysburgtimes.com/obituaries/article_7aa58941-955e-5a87-bd48-fb320c4a99c0.html Accessed February 1, 2021
- “Thomas, Audree Ruth” in The Encyclopedia of B. C. https://www.knowbc.com/books/Encyclopedia-of-BC/T/Thomas-Audree-Ruth
- Chujoy, Anatole, and P. W. Manchester, The Dance Encyclopedia (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1967)