Nicole347

An obit appeared in The Times of London on April 18 as well. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/o...icle6114996.ece And a piece appeared in The Telegraph on April 10. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries...Evdokimova.html

Thank you so much for letting us know. As you say, it's an extraordinary piece.

Jennifer's piece is very moving and captures Eva's essence perfectly. It's on page 14 of the print edition. My friend Jean-Marie Wynants, the dance critic for Le Soir in Brussels, has written an obituary that appears in today's issue. The article is not yet available on the free portion of the site, but may become available there in coming days. I did a quick translation of the piece and will paste it here: The extraordinary dancer Eva Evdokimova died during the night of Thursday to Friday in New York, after a long illness. Dancer, choreographer, teacher, she appeared on the most famous stages in the world and was Rudolf Nureyev's regular partner. Contrary to what her last name woul suggest, Eva Evdokimova was American, born in Geneva in 1948, of a Bulgarian father and an American mother. After Geneva, she spent a good part of her childhood and youth in Germany and England. This very international life gave her a knolwedge of languages that she never ceased to perfect, adding to English, French, German, Russian and Chinese. [This is wrong, actually--it was Japanese.] But from one country to another, she pursued the true passion that drove her throughout her existence: dance. As a child, she began her studies in Munich then followed this at the prestigious Royal Ballet School in London, from 1959. After that, her passion took her to the far corners of the world, making her unique in the history of dance. She quickly understood that in addition to classical technique, one must be open to other domains. She was to study music, theatre, and art history. These were among so many elements that were to nourish her interpretations and make her such an exceptional teacher. As a dancer, she accumulated many "firsts": First foreign ballerina to enter in the the very closed Royal Danish Ballet, the first American to perform with the Kirov, the first American to receive the title of Prima Ballerina Assoluta abroad (at the Deutsche Oper Ballet in Berlin), the first American to receive the Ulanova prize in Moscow.... These "firsts" must not obscure the essential: the formidable talent of this ballerina, who knew how to dazle audiences everywhere, from New York to Moscow, and passing through Berlin, Peking, and the Paris Opera Ballet. If, during 15 years, she was Rudolf Nureyev's partner, she also shared the stage with many other great names of ballet. Her performances, of which happily there remain records, still fire all lovers of ballet today. It suffices to see her in La Sylphide (a wonderful film clip is available on YouTube) in order to understand the art of this dancer edowed with an extraordinary energy behind a frail appearance. The greatest talent of Evdokimova was perhaps to know how to divinely move audiences where so many others succeeded only in dazzling them. To an irreproachable technique (that she later taught at the greatest international companies), she allied a magical grace and elegance. To see her today, in black and white, moving with so much grace and lightness that she seems literally to float in the air, leaves no doubt: A dancer has gone but her star will shine forever. --JEAN-MARIE WYNANTS Translated by Nicole Dekle Collins

And there is Giselle pdd too (not sure if I can add the link, but I think that the clips are not yet available through youtube search engine...).Unfortunately I've never seen her dancing live, but she was the first Sylph I've ever seen and she is till now my favourite. May she rest in peace. Many thanks for posting the Giselle pas de deux clips on YouTube, Annamicro. That's an enormous gift to her fans and to all those who will now have the chance to discover her artistry.

It is true that Eva Evdokimova passed away in New York in the morning of April 3. She was actually 60 years old. (Birthdate: December 1, 1948.) As has already been said in these posts, Eva was a strikingly modest, gentle, sincere, thoughtful and generous person, in addition to being among the greatest ballerinas I have had the privilege to see perform. It has often been said that others danced the role of the Sylphide but that Eva was the Sylphide. Like the sylph, she was playful, joyful, innocent, trusting, ethereal, and forgiving. I will never forget the image of her joyous clapping during a series of jetes--clapping out of childlike happiness and her pleasure at playing little jokes on James. Her dancing was extraordinary--her interpretations were musical, intelligent, sensitive, and richly thought out. She told me that she adored developing a role, having time to mature in it, explore all of its possibilities and subtleties. I was fortunate to have been able to study with Eva for seven years. Her demonstrations were in themselves a string of pearls: the beauty of her feet and legs as they worked through tendus and developpes at the barre, the delicacy and refinement of her epaulement, her extraordinary ballon, the pliancy and soft power of her sissones and other small jumps, even in her 50s. And then there was her commitment to a vision of ballet that was feminine, nuanced, refined, gracious, and well mannered. She was generous with her corrections, mild and soft-spoken in her manner, but she gave an uncompromising class. She had a will of steel and a voracious appetite for challenges and hard work, and her classes reflected the core of iron that underlay her elegant, mild, ladylike exterior. She will be terribly, terribly missed by dancers, dancegoers, dance writers, and all the students who had the great good fortune to study with her and receive her coaching. There are some clips of Eva in La Sylphide on YouTube. I urge readers who never got to see her dancing to watch these clips. They reveal a great deal about the person as well as the dancer.