BERIOSOVA AND DOKOUDOVSKY.

One view of history is that it is the story of the people who make the events. But the selection of those people, and even to a very real extent their actual story, largely depends, perhaps particularly in the performing arts, on that iridescent bubble we call reputation. And the good that artists perform is oft interred with their bones. If we even now have difficulty assessing the value of dancers, teachers, and choreographers merely a decade or so after they have left the full-glare spotlight of their careers' summits, how much more difficult it will seem to the dance historians who come after us, trying to make some sense of the untidy annals of our present dancing years, balancing this long-dead reputation with that, drawing up lists of influences, grading significance, and noting lasting success. At the end of last year, two very different dancers died--Svetlana Beriosova at the age of sixty-six in London, and Vladimir Dokoudovsky at the age of seventy-nine in New York. The facts of their careers can be baldly stated.

The great British ballerina Beriosova was born in Lithuania, daughter of ballet master Nicholas Beriosoff. She first studied in New York City, but made her debut in Canada. In 1948 she moved to Britain, joining Cecilia Blatch's Metropolitan Ballet, being partnered by Erik Bruhn, and creating roles for John Taras and Frank Staff. She entered Britain's Royal Ballet in 1950, where she remained until her retirement in 1975. Second only to Dame Margot Fonteyn, she was a luminous jewel during the golden age of the Royal Ballet during the late sixties, creating roles for Sir Frederick Ashton, notably in Rinaldo and Armida, Birthday Offering, Persephone, and Enigma Variations, for John Cranko in Antigone and The Prince of the Pagodas, and for Sir Kenneth MacMillan in Le Baiser de la Fee. She danced all the major classic ballerina roles with great distinction, and starred in the landmark Royal revivals of Bronislava Nijinska's Les Biches and Les Noces.

Dokoudovsky, dancer and teacher, one of the last remaining links with Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes, was born in Monte Carlo of Russian and Italian parentage. His early training came in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska. He made his debut with the Monte Carlo Opera Ballet in 1934, later dancing with various other companies, including American Ballet Theatre during its first season. His main career was with de Basil, whom he joined as a principal dancer in 1942, and he was best noted for his leading character and demi-caractere roles, remaining until 1950. He later was principal dancer and ballet master with George Kirsta's successor company to the de Basil, for which he choreographed Les Femmes d'Alger in 1952. He was with the so-called Original Ballet Russe for its final performance in London (conducted, if memory serves, by Sir Colin Davis!) on January 26, 1952. Subsequently he became a highly regarded teacher in New York City.

Both dancers, as can be told from these summaries, were, especially in the case of Beriosova, figures of some importance in the dance world, yet the bare recital of such facts hardly does either of them justice. Both of them, in their very different ways, were dancers who never attained the ultimate recognition due them. Beriosova, however, was much admired in her heyday, and Dokoudovsky had a loyal and enormously appreciative following, although with his stiff and martinet ways, he never acquired a cult status as a teacher.

Their careers never quite intersected, although interestingly both were children of that post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes fallout, full of old ballets, older traditions, White Russians, and emigre Nansen passports. I say "never quite intersected," but it was a near miss. Before Beriosova's official debut in 1947 with Ottawa Ballet, as a student of Ludmilla Schollar, she did occasionally walk on as the little girl with the skipping rope in Leonide Massine's Le Beau Danube, with Serge Denham's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. By that time, Dokoudovsky had left to throw his lot in with de Basil, but it shows how similar their original backgrounds were.

In light of this, note the fascinating comment of historian Sarah C. Woodcock: "It was perhaps ironic that Beriosova, entirely Russian-trained, should be hailed after Fonteyn as exemplifying the Royal Ballet style," Ironic, but tree. Fonteyn, who once declared her--luckily soon rescinded--intention to retire at thirty, remained the Royal's prima ballerina assoluta, with a career that outlived literally generations of putative successors. Perhaps the most exquisite of those ballerinas who never quite led the company was Beriosova. Her style as Odette-Odile, usually partnered by the elegantly princely Donald MacLeary, was matchless; her humor as Swanilda could be compared with that of Alexandra Danilova; her wit and graciousness as Cinderella and her mystery as Ondine challenged Fonteyn; and all her roles, such as even her naughty Hostess in Les Biches, were invested with an ineffable, Byronic grace. Yet future historians may not recognize her as one of the ballerinas of the century.

No, Dokoudovsky was not so distinguished--but he again is easy to underestimate. I saw him dance dozens of times between 1947 and 1952--I even saw his overtaxed attempt at choreography with Les Femmes d'Alger. His choreography--created here under the most trying of circumstances and thrown onto a shelflike stage at the Royal Festival Hall--was not particularly impressive, but his dancing had a most unusual versatility. By 1947, together with Roman Jasinsky, Nicholas Orloff, and, as a guest artist, David Lichine, Dokoudovsky was principal male dancer for de Basil, and his roles ranged from the Warrior in Prince Igor and the Golden Slave in Scheherazade to the Bluebird in Aurora's Wedding and Harlequin in Carnaval. He had a delightful touch in comedy roles, such as the Leading Cadet in Lichine's Graduation Ball or his created role as the love-crazed suitor of Renee Jeanmaire in Boris Kniaseff's Rossini romp, Piccoli. But I will perhaps remember him best gauntly dominating in the title role of Michel Fokine's Paganini, a part he learned from its creator, Dmitri Rostov.

Two dancers of, you might say, Russian provenance, by ethnicity and training, one becoming a great ballerina and a touchstone of the Royal Ballet style, and the other one of the last, if tenuous, links to the Ballet Russe revolution that started in Paris with Diaghilev, Fokine, Leon Bakst, and Alexander Benois just ninety years ago. Both--with a little better luck--could have left a deeper impression on ballet history, but when that history is written, I trust that some scholars will pay at least passing note. As Arthur Miller nearly said, attention must be paid to such people.

Senior editor Clive Barnes has contributed to Dance Magazine since 1958.