A Custodian of Lifar’ s Heritage
On February 14, Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma awarded a Princess Olha Order of the 1st Class to Danish national Lillan Ahlefeldt-Laurvig, founder and president of the Serge Lifar Foundation, for personal contribution to the popularization of Ukrainian cultural and artistic heritage in the world, and charitable activity.
In 1994, when Kyiv hosted for the first time the international Serge Lifar Dance Festival, the widow of the famous choreographer and dancer came to his homeland. This fragile woman managed to bring the great maestro’s unfairly forgotten name back to Ukraine. For more than thirty years S. Lifar headed the ballet troupe at Grande Opera in Paris, UNESCO World Dancing Council, and the French Academy of Choreography.
Two years ago Countess Ahlefeldt donated a Golden Shoe (the highest ballet award conferred on S. Lifar) to the Museum of Historical Treasures of Ukraine for permanent custody. Ms. Lillan asked to put next to it Lifar’s canvas ballet shoe he used to wear in Kyiv. “Never part them”, she said, “for there is pain and sweat in one and fame in the other!”
The countess tries to miss none of these contests, as it is always a chance to discover new dancers and choreographers. She has instituted cash prizes which she personally gives to winners. For example, spectators at the Serge Lifar Dance Festival could see Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet staged by Lifar in 1949 for Grande Opera. This work was revived by a Kyiv-based choreographer Viktor Yaremenko. Natalia Kalynychenko and Yevhen Kolesnyk were the first to dance the parts of Romeo and Juliet.
Last year Ms. Ahlefeldt helped to organize a tour of the Bordeaux Opera ballet troupe. It is on the National Opera of Ukraine stage that Lifar’s student Charles Jude and his company first made the Kyivans familiar with Lifar’s dancing gems Suite en Blanc and Icarus .
L. Ahlefeldt is gradually donating her husband’s heritage (manuscripts, archives) to Kyiv, the city he was born in and adored all his lifetime. A laconic phrase is carved on his black granite gravestone at Sainte Genevieve de Bois cemetery: “Serge Lifar from Kyiv”.
On April 2, the dancing master’s birthday, the next Lifar festival is starting. Many famous artists are coming to our capital. We will be also looking forward to the honorable guest, Countess Ahlefeldt.
