Marius Petipa

Marius Petipa (1818-1910) was a French dancer and the principal Ballet Master for the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg from 1869 until 1903. His works include "La Bayadere" (1877), a revised "Giselle" (1884), "The Sleeping Beauty" (1890), a revised "Swan Lake" (1895), and "Raymonda" (1898). Dance historian Lynn Garafola believes Petipa "had an incalculable effect on Russian ballet." She points out that he supervised the transition from Romanticism to Classicism in Russian ballet, and fused the Italian bravura and French lyrical techniques. Garafola writes, "[Petipa] helped transform an art dominated by foreigners and identified with the West into a Russian national expression."