Fokina, Vera (EN)

Fokina Vera Petrovna, née Antonova, *3 August 1886, †29 July 1958 New York, wife of Michel Fokine (from 1905), Russian dancer and teacher. She graduated from the St Petersburg Ballet School. From 1904 she was a character dancer; between 1916 and 1918 she was prima ballerina at the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg; between 1909 and 1914 she was a soloist with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. After leaving Russia in 1918, she performed as a prima ballerina with various European companies; from 1923, she taught at the Fokines’ ballet school in New York. She created roles in her husband’s ballets with the Ballets Russes, including Chiarina (Carnaval, music by R. Schumann, 1910), Tsarevna (The Firebird, music by I. Stravinsky, 1910), Shulamite (The Legend of Joseph, music by R. Strauss, 1914) and, in St Petersburg, including the Persian princess (Stenka Razin, music by A. Glazunov, 1915).