Ludmila Tcherina

Tcherina, Ludmila (orig. Monika Tchemerzina (Monique Tchemerzina)b Paris, 10 Oct. 1924, d Paris, 20 March 2004). French dancer, actress, and painter. She studied with Blanche d'Alessandri, Preobrajenska, and Clustine. She started dancing at the Opéra de Marseilles at the age of 16 and then danced with the Ballets de Monte Carlo, where she was spotted by Lifar. She made her Paris debut creating the role of Juliet in Lifar's Romeo and Juliet at the Salle Pleyel in 1942. She was a principal dancer with the Ballets des Champs-Elysées (1945) and performed in dance concerts in Paris with her husband Edmond Audran (who was killed in a car accident in 1951). She also danced with the Ballets de Paris and the Nouveaux Ballets de Monte Carlo (directed by Lifar). She created roles in Lifar's Mephisto Waltz (1945), A la mémoire d'un héros (1946), and the title role in Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien (1957) and in Béjart's Gala (Venice, 1961). She appeared frequently as a guest ballerina, at the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi, and the Kirov in Russia, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where she appeared as principal dancer in Joseph Lazzini's production of The Miraculous Mandarin (1967), later filmed and televised. She had her own company (1958-9) which performed at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. She acted in several films including Les Rendezvous, The Red Shoes (1948), and Tales of Hoffmann (1951), for which she won an Academy Award in 1952. She also appeared in several television productions. A painter in her spare time, she had several exhibitions of her work in Paris. She also wrote two novels about dance: L'Amour au miroir (1983) and La Femme à l'envers (1986).