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I am sorry to inform everyone that the English dancer Leo Kersley recently passed away aged 92.

Leo was a pupil of Idzikovski and Marie Rambert whose company he danced with and later joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet and later again, was with The Anglo-Polish Ballet but soon returned to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet from 1946-1951.

Among his roles with the Sadler’s Well’s company was in the pas de trios from Swan Lake with Anne Heaton and Nadia Nerina having a great admiration and friendship with the latter. Leo was at one time married to Celia Franca founder of the National Ballet of Canada.

I knew Leo and his family from the 1960’s and I organised the journey for us all to go to the 1968 Varna Ballet Competition when Galina Panova was awarded the Gold Medal.

He had a Ballet School in Harlow, Essex with his wife Janet, where he staged ballet performances and I well remember him reviving Andree Howard’s “Death and the Maiden” (Andante Cantabile from Schubert’s String Quartet in D Minor) ballet which was first produced by Ballet Rambert at the Duchess Theatre London in 1927 and was revived by ABT at “The Premiere” New York in 1940.

Together with his wife Janet Sinclair in 1952, they co-authored. “A Dictionary of Ballet Terms.” Janet pre-deceased him. He is survived by his children Alexandra and John.

Leo was a kind and goodly man known to all the regulars at the Royal Opera House where he frequently attended performances into the 1980’s.

I last met him at the British Film Institute where he regaled a group of his long term friends, with memories of the ballet dancers we were about to see on archive film.

There is a rather fond interview with Leo at, http://www.bl.uk/projects/theatrearchive/kersley.html

Leo is referred to in the current Ballet Alert posts on "Retirement."

Obituary: http://www.harlowsta...er-05072012.htm

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