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[Estelle]

When reading the July issue of "Danser", I had the bad surprise to learn that the dance critic Irene Lidova had passed away on May 23. I had missed the link with the obituary in the New York Times posted by Ari on June 19
http://www.nytimes.c...ies/19LIDO.html

and I guess that it's a sad reflection of the lack of attention of the French general media for ballet that I had not heard about it before...

She was born as Irene Kaminski in Moscow in 1907, and had emigrated to Paris after the October Revolution with her family. She became a journalist, and got married to the famous dance photographer Serge Lido. She was especially influential on the early careers or Roland Petit and Janine Charrat, organizing their first dance concerts in the mid-1940s.

She still was active for the monthly Italian magazine "Balletto Oggi", and its French version "Ballet 2000", writing a monthly chronicle about all the famous dance people she had met in her long life. There is an affectionated obituary about her in "Danser", by its director Jean-Claude Dienis, who had worked with her in the 1960s and 1970s for "Les Saisons de la Danse".

Here's a link for another obituary in "The Independent", by Nadine Meisner:

http://www.independe...sp?story=311458

and also another one by Mary Clarke in "The Guardian":

http://www.guardian....4454021,00.html

She is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve des Bois, along with many ballet people like Kchessinskaia, Preobrajenska, Lifar, Nureyev... (If I have enough time perhaps it would be interesting to go there and take some photographs of their graves...)