Asaf Messerer
Asaf Mikhailovich Messerer (Template:Lang-ru; 19 November 1903 – 7 March 1992) was a Soviet ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1919 he studied privately with Mikhail Mordkin, until Alexander Gorsky placed him in a class at the Bolshoi Ballet School, from which he graduated in 1921. 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 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
- Choreographers of Bolshoi Theatre
- Honored Artists of the RSFSR
- People's Artists of the RSFSR
- People's Artists of the USSR
- Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples
- Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- Recipients of the Stalin Prize
- Ballet choreographers
- Ballet teachers
- Plisetski–Messerer family
- Jewish dancers
- Lithuanian Jews
- Russian choreographers
- Russian male ballet dancers
- Soviet choreographers
- Soviet educators
- Soviet male ballet dancers
- Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery