The Emergence of Ballet in Britain during The Second World War, BBC Ballet Season

Ballet During The Second World War

Continuing the BBC Ballet Season. Wed BBC March 5th 9pm but can be seen on iplayer. Dancing in the Blitz. 
David Bintley on how British ballet was forged during the Second World War.David Bintley, director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet explores how the Second World War was the making of British ballet and how fundamental the years of hardship and adversity were in getting the British public to embrace ballet. Bintley shows how the then Sadler's Wells Ballet Company, led by Ninette de Valois and featuring a star-studded generation of British dancers and choreographers including Margot Fonteyn and Frederick Ashton, was forged during the Second World War.

It's the story of how de Valois and her small company of dancers took what was essentially a foreign art-form and made it British despite the falling bombs, the rationing and the call-up. Plus it is the story of how Britain, as a nation, fell in love with ballet.

Using rare and previously unseen footage, plus interviews with dance icons such as Dame Gillian Lynne and Dame Beryl Grey, Bintley shows how the Sadler's Wells Ballet company survived an encounter with Nazi forces in Holland, dancing whilst the bombs were falling in the Blitz, rationing and a punishing touring schedule to bring ballet to the British people as an antidote to the austerity the country faced to emerge post-war as The Royal Ballet 

Dancing the the Blitz, BBC Link


Also if your interested in this era you must read the autobiography by Gillian Lynne, Dancer in Wartime. She was dancing with Margot Fonteine and Moira Shearer at this time. A tale of courage, tenacity and ambition.