Mona Inglesby

The masque was a predecessor of ballet, an early form of entertainment involving music, dance, verse, singing and acting, and John Milton's Comus was a masque created for the Earl of Bridgewater at Ludlow Castle in 1634.

The International Ballet production included all the elements of the original, with an acting cast as well as a ballet cast, and the first version lasted three hours, though it was later trimmed to two.

The critics didn't know what to make of it!

Mona Inglesby (3 May 1918 – 6 October 2006), was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, director of the touring company International Ballet, and the person who saved the Sergeyev Collection for posterity.

Mona Inglesby was born in London of a British mother and a Dutch businessman father, Beatrix Anne Inglesby and Julius Cato Vredenburg.

She started dancing very young, according to one of her early biographers, appearing on stage for the first time at age five at La Scala.

At 12 was accepted into the school of Marie Rambert.

This training was supplemented by lessons from Tamara Karsavina and Vera Volkova, both of whom had settled in London after fleeing Bolshevik Russia.

She was soon appearing with the Ballet Club (which became Ballet Rambert in 1934) at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate and at 15 she danced the part of Papillon in Mikhail Fokine's Carnaval, alongside actors Frederick Ashton as Pierrot, Harold Turner as Harlequin, Alicia Markova as Columbine and Antony Tudor as Eusebius.

However she became dissatisfied with the Cecchetti method as taught by Rambert and took lessons in the traditional Maryinsky system from Lubov Egorova, Mathilde Kschessinska and Olga Preobrajenska in Paris and Nicholas Legat in London.

This strained her relationship with Marie Rambert.

The single performance of Ballets de la Jeunesse Anglaise was a charity matinee at the Cambridge Theatre in 1938, and Endymion was well received.

She later choreographed 4 more new ballets, listed below.

All went into the repertoire of International Ballet after that company was formed.

Everyman was more than just a ballet.

Her association with Ballet Rambert ended when Egorova obtained for her an invitation to dance with de Basil's Original Ballet Russe company in its London season at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1939.

Here she danced alongside the "baby ballerinas" Irina Baronova, Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska, and gained experience of dancing with a company much larger than Ballet Rambert.

At the end of that season she was invited to join the company for its Australian tour, but war was looming and she declined.

She spent the rest of her dancing career as a principal dancer with International Ballet.

The company's repertoire over its 12-year existence contained 22 ballets and Inglesby danced lead parts in most of them, including the classical roles of Giselle, Swanhilda in Coppelia, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty and Odette/Odile in Swan Lake.

Ballet Today magazine described her as having 'some remarkable qualities as a dancer; she is exceptionally light, swift and aerial with strong, beautiful feet'.

It was while at the Rambert company that Inglesby developed her interest in choreography, inspired by a core group of fellow dancers who were becoming notable choreographers -- Frederick Ashton, Andree Howard, Antony Tudor, Ninette de Valois and Walter Gore.

Antony Tudor taught her choreography, and her chance came when at age 18 she was invited to create a ballet for the very short-lived venture Ballets de la Jeunesse Anglaise.

The result was Endymion, a short ballet to music by Moskowski.

She persuaded Constant Lambert to do some rearranging of the music and Sophie Fedorovitch to design the set and costumes.

On the outbreak of war she volunteered to drive an ambulance, but continued with her ballet, and in February 1940 she opened a studio in borrowed premises in South Kensington at which she and like minded friends could practice.

She soon decided a better use of her talents would be in presenting ballet to audiences in the now bombed cities of Britain and with a £5,000 loan from her father she formed the company Choreographic Productions Ltd, to perform under the name of International Ballet.

She started with a small orchestra, but larger than Sadler's Wells could muster, and 21 dancers, with herself, the experienced Ballets Russes dancer Nina Tarakanova and the virtuoso star Harold Turner at the head.

Among her initial artistes were the future Sadler's Wells Ballet and The Red Shoes star Moira Shearer, then 15, and the future choreographer Maurice Béjart.

One of her main designers was Doris Zinkeisen

Under her direction the International Ballet made its debut in the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow on 19 May 1941, with a full orchestra.

It grew to be a very large company, bringing ballet to the masses in city theatres, cinemas, seaside holiday camps and military camps across Britain.

The company continued to make extensive UK tours followed by 6 or 8-week London seasons on Shaftesbury Avenue.

Company numbers rose to 80.

Because of their large audiences they generated substantial income which supported their innovations and overseas tours.

Inglesby directed the company throughout its 12-year life, as well as dancing at its head.

During this time, the company did not have a permanent theater in London but was obliged to book runs of a few weeks when West End theater schedules allowed.

This handicap had the hidden benefit of obliging the company to tour outside London.

It was based on the late 15th-century English morality play Everyman and included verse, delivered by an actor rather than a dancer.

The Masque of Comus was both ambitious and courageous and required much historical research.