WFrançoise-Ambroise Acolet, called Mademoiselle Ambroisine, was a French actress and ballet dancer. She was considered the leading lady of romantic ballet in Brussels during the 1832 to 1836.
WConstance-Hippolyte Gosselin was a French ballet dancer. The daughter of a dancing master and younger sister of the dancer Geneviève Gosselin, Constance débuted at the Opéra de Paris in 1810, after studying dance under Louis Duport and Jean-François Coulon. She married Auguste-Anatole Petit in 1815 and was thus also known as Madame Anatole.
WAnne and Janneton Auretti were French ballerinas who performed for London audiences and French royalty in the mid- to late-18th century. A dance named after them is still performed today.
WLéonore Baulac is a French ballet dancer. She is an étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet.
WGiuseppina Bozzacchi was an Italian ballerina, noted for creating the role of Swanhilda in Léo Delibes' ballet Coppélia at the age of 16 while dancing for the Paris Opera Ballet.
WMarie Anne de Cupis de Camargo, sometimes known simply as La Camargo, was a French dancer. The first woman to execute the entrechat quatre, Camargo was also allegedly responsible for two innovations in ballet as she was one of the first dancers to wear slippers instead of heeled shoes, and, while there is no evidence that she was the first woman to wear the short calf-length ballet skirt, the now standardized ballet tights she did help to popularize these. She is said to have been as strong as the male dancers.
WLeslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French-American actress, dancer, and writer. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards.
WYvette Chauviré was a French prima ballerina and actress. She is often described as France's greatest ballerina, and was the coach of prima ballerinas Sylvie Guillem and Marie-Claude Pietragalla. She was awarded the Légion d'Honneur in 1964.
WValentine Colasante is a French ballet dancer. She is an étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet.
WAdèle Alphonsine Dumilâtre was a French dancer, famous in the days of romantic ballet. After her marriage to Francisco Drake del Castillo she became a Countess.
WPauline Duvernay or Yolande Marie-Louise Duvernay or Yolande Marie Louise de Varnay was a noted French dancer.
WMarie Justine Benoîte Favart was an operatic singer, actress, playwright and dancer, the wife of the dramatist, Charles Simon Favart.
WEugénie Fiocre was a principal dancer at the Paris Opéra 1864–75 where she often danced en travesti, creating Frantz in Coppélia in 1870, and, renowned for her beauty, was sculpted by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and painted by Degas in a scene from Saint-Léon's ballet La Source. She was married to Stanislas Le Compasseur de Créqui-Montfort Marquis de Courtivron and mother of explorer, anthropologist, diplomat and Olympian Georges de Crequi-Montfort.
WLouise Fitzjames was a 19th-century ballerina. She was born on 10 December 1809 in Paris, and danced at Paris Opera from 1832 to 1846. When Marie Taglioni dropped out of Meyerbeer's Robert le diable after a few appearances, Fitzjames took on Taglioni's role of the Abbess. She danced the Abbess over 230 times. She was criticized by poet Théophile Gautier for her emaciated appearance. Other roles included those in Le Dieu et la bayadere and La Jolie Fille de Gand in 1842.
WDorothée Gilbert is a principal dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet.
WMarquise-Thérèse de Gorla, also known under her stage name Mademoiselle Du Parc, was a French actress and ballet dancer. She was one of the stars of Molière's company. She was also known for her love affairs and as an object of affection for many famous people.
WGeneviève-Adélaïde Gosselin was a French ballet dancer known for being the first dancer en pointe.
WSylvie Guillem is a French ballet dancer. Guillem was the top-ranking female dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet from 1984 to 1989, before becoming a principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London. She has performed contemporary dance as an Associate Artist of London's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Her most notable performances have included those in Giselle and in Rudolf Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake and Don Quixote. In November 2014, she announced her retirement from the stage in 2015.
WMarie-Madeleine Guimard was a French ballerina who dominated the Parisian stage during the reign of Louis XVI. For twenty-five years she was the star of the Paris Opera. She made herself even more famous by her love affairs, especially by her long liaison with the Prince of Soubise. According to Edmond de Goncourt, when d'Alembert was asked why dancers like La Guimard made such prodigious fortunes, when singers did not, he responded, "It is a necessary consequence of the laws of motion".
WRenée Marcelle "Zizi" Jeanmaire was a French ballet dancer, actress and singer. She became famous in the 1950s after playing the title role in the ballet Carmen, produced in London in 1949, and went on to appear in several Hollywood films and Paris revues. She was the wife of dancer and choreographer Roland Petit, who created ballets and revues for her.
WKatherine Kath was a French prima ballerina at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, who became an actress after suffering from an injury which destroyed her chances of continuing her career.
WAdèle-Louise-Pauline Leroux was a French dancer and ballerina of the 19th-century Romantic ballet era and a member of the Paris Opera Ballet.
WMarie Lesieur, known as Lesueur, was a French ballet dancer.
WEmma Livry was a French ballerina who was one of the last ballerinas of the Romantic ballet era and a protégée of Marie Taglioni. She died from complications after burn injuries sustained when her costume caught fire during a rehearsal.
WLuba Marks was a Bulgarian-born French-American fashion designer of Russian descent specializing in sportswear from the 1950s to the 1980s. Prior to this, under the name Lubov Roudenko she was a former soloist for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the late 1930s and early 1940s, afterwards performing on Broadway throughout the 1940s.
WSophie Christine Martin is a French ballet dancer. She is a principal dancer with the Scottish Ballet.
WPauline-Euphrosine Paul was a French ballet dancer. She married the dancer Laurent-François-Alexandre Montessu in 1821 and was thus also known as Madame Montessu. She was the sister and student of the noted dancer Paul before being admitted to the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, where she débuted on 17 July 1820 beside him. She was première danseuse until 1836, when she retired, although she continued to put on productions here and there, notably at Amsterdam in 1840, with André Isidore Carey.
WThe Paris Opera Ballet is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet companies can trace their origins to it. It is still regarded as one of the four most prominent ballet companies in the world, together with the Royal Ballet in London, the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow and the Mariinsky Ballet in Saint Petersburg.
WStacia Napierkowska was a French actress, dancer, and director who worked during the silent film era. She appeared in 86 films between 1908 and 1926.
WMarie-Élisabeth Noblet, known by her stage name of Lise Noblet, was a French ballet dancer. She débuted at the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris in 1819 in a pas de deux with Albert, then danced the principal roles in the ballets of Pierre Gardel. She left the Opéra in 1841 on the death of her faithful companion, général Claparède.
WClairemarie Osta is a French ballet dancer who performed with the Paris Opera Ballet as an étoile. In 2017, she became the head of the ballet department at the Royal Swedish Ballet School.
WMademoiselle Parisot was a French opera singer and ballet dancer in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Her provocative costumes and dances caused an uproar in London and led to the imposition of restrictions on performances.
WWilfride Piollet was a French ballerina and choreographer. She was born in Saint-Rambert-d'Albon. Her philosophy of dance and her research led to the publication of several books. Piollet joined the Paris Opera Ballet company in 1960. She gained the rank "coryphée" in 1963, "sujet" in 1964, soloist in 1966, and was promoted to principal dancer (étoile) in 1969. In 1973, Nouvelle lune c-à-d was created for her retirement of the Paris Opera. Invited as a guest by Rudolf Nureyev, she danced at the Paris Opera until 1990, the year when Jean Guizerix left. At the Paris Opera and worldwide, she performed the classical, neo-classical and contemporary repertory, and from the 1980s, the Baroque and Renaissance ones. She ended her dance career in 2003 with a piece on Isadora Duncan's dances studied with Madeleine Lytton, and performed with Jean Guizerix.
WÉlisabeth Platel is a French prima ballerina.
WFrançoise Prévost was a French ballerina who helped establish dramatic dance in the early world of classical ballet. She was expressive, light and dramatic in style.
WLaetitia Pujol is a French ballet dancer. She joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 1993, becoming a principal in 2000 and a star (étoile) in 2002.
WAlice Renavand is a French ballet dancer. After joining the Paris Opera Ballet in 1997, she became a principal in 2012 and a star in December 2013. Shortly afterwards, she was described as having "la beauté du diable" as Lizzie in Fall River Legend.
WMarie Sallé (1707–1756) was a French dancer and choreographer in the 18th century known for her expressive, dramatic performances rather than a series of "leaps and frolics" typical of ballet of her time.
WMarie Sanlaville (1847–1930) was a leading dancer with the Paris Opéra. She is particularly noted for her association with the artist Edgar Degas, who painted her often and dedicated a rare sonnet to her.
WMarie-Thérèse Perdou de Subligny (1666–1735) was a French ballerina. She entered the l'Académie Royale de Musique in 1688, where she succeeded Mademoiselle de Lafontaine as prima ballerina, a position she held until 1707. She appeared mostly in opera ballets of Jean-Baptiste Lully and André Campra. She was the first professional ballerina to appear in England (1702-3). She was seen as one of the Queens of ballet.
WMarina Svetlova was a French and American ballerina and ballet instructor.
WLudmilla Tchérina was a French prima ballerina, sculptor, actress, painter, choreographer and author of two novels.
WTamara Tchinarova Finch was a ballet dancer of Armenian, Georgian and Ukrainian descent. During the 1940s Tchinarova contributed significantly to the development of fledgling Australian dance companies, including the Kirsova Ballet and the Borovansky Ballet. After retiring from dancing, she worked as a Russian/English interpreter for touring ballet companies, including the Australian Ballet, and as a dance writer.
WKsenia Arturovna Tripolitova was a Russian-born French ballet dancer. She was born in Vilna, Russian Empire. She began studying in the studio of Lyubov Yegorova. She was known for touring with her husband Nikolai Tripolitov during the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1960s, she began a solo career. Tripolitova was known for performing during World War II when Nazis were fighting in France.
WMarie Geneviève van Goethem was a French ballet student and dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet, and the model for Edgar Degas's statue Little Dancer of Fourteen Years.
WViolette Verdy was a French ballerina, choreographer, teacher, and writer who worked as a dance company director with the Paris Opera Ballet in France and the Boston Ballet in the United States. From 1958 to 1977 she was a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet where she performed in the world premieres of several works created specifically for her by choreographers George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She was Distinguished Professor of Music (Ballet) at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, in Bloomington, and the recipient of two medals from the French government.