Asaf Messerer
Asaf Mikhailovich Messerer (Russian: Асаф Михайлович Мессерер, November 19, 1903 - March 7, 1992) was a highly influential Soviet ballet dancer and ballet teacher. He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. From 1919 until 1921 he trained as a dancer at the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet School. He then joined the Bolshoi Theatre, where he became one of its most important principal soloists, a position he retired from in 1954.
Today Messerer is best remembered as a choreographer and an instructor; he was both the choreographer and ballet master for the Bolshoi Theatre. His book Classes in Classical Ballet is a thorough study of proper ballet technique and is still used today.
Messerer was the brother of Sulamith Messerer and Rachel Messerer and the uncle of Maya Plisetskaya, Alexander Plisetski and Azari Plisetski, as well as of Mikhail Messerer. He was married to silent film star, Anel Sudakevich (Template:Lang-ru). They had one son, Boris Messerer (Template:Lang-ru). He won multiple awards from the USSR and from Lithuania.
See also
External links
- Asaf Messerer, soloist (1940): Ribbon Dance, Music by Reinhold Gliere (1875-1956), Choreography by Messerer and Lashchulin, Open Source Movies
- Archive film of Asaf Messerer's Spring Waters in 1979 at Jacob's Pillow
- 1903 births
- 1992 deaths
- Dancers from Vilnius
- People from Vilensky Uyezd
- Plisetski–Messerer family
- Lithuanian Jews
- Soviet male ballet dancers
- Ballet choreographers
- Soviet choreographers
- Ballet teachers
- Soviet educators
- Jewish dancers
- Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples
- People's Artists of the USSR
- People's Artists of the RSFSR
- Recipients of the Stalin Prize
- Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery