Asaf Messerer

Messerer, Asaf (b Vilnius, 19 Nov. 1903, d Moscow, 7 Mar. 1992). Soviet dancer, ballet master, and teacher. He studied privately with Mordkin, then with Gorsky at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow from 1919. He graduated in 1921, joining the Bolshoi Ballet. For the next 30 years he was one of the company's most important principal dancers, an athletic and virile performer. He retired in 1954. Although he choreographed several ballets, including Ballet Class and the gala favourite Spring Waters, it is as a teacher that he made a greater contribution. He began teaching in 1923 at the Bolshoi, directing the Class of Perfection from 1942 or 1943, the ballet class for top professional dancers. He also frequently taught abroad. He was guest ballet master of the Ballet of the 20th Century (1961-2). Author of Classes in Classical Ballet (Moscow, 1967; English language version, New York, 1975) and Dance, Thought and Times (1979). Uncle of Maya Plisetskaya; brother of the Bolshoi ballerina Sulamith Messerer. Merited Artist of the USSR (1933), Stalin Prize (1941, 1947), and People's Artist of the USSR (1976).