Dancers remember Hammersmith citizen dancer Nicolai Legat European dancer Nicolai Legat with Anna Pavlova BARONS Court has long been a haven for the creative and brilliant. While studying law in London Mahatma Gandhi, the internationally renowned chief of the Indian freedom movement, was a citizen as was civil rights activist Marcus Garvey and with the world famous London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts situated in Talgarth Road, several stars of stage and screen have also called the area property. And now this week, another well-known person has been commemorated. On Tuesday a plaque was presented outside Colet House, celebrating living of Nicolai Legat one of the great Russian ballet stars of pre-revolutionary Russia. Commissioned by Hammersmith and Fulhamas Historic Buildings Group, the blue souvenir was unveiled by mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham, Councillor Belinda Donovan. Huddled in to the small dance studio was a group of good retired ballerinas and entertainers from the Royal Ballet and Legat Society who'd convened to mark the event. Born in 1869, Legat joined the ballet business of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg aged 19 on his graduation from the Imperial Theatre School. He took major roles and later his students included the kind of Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Mikhail Fokine and Vaslav Nijinsky. By 1923, he left the newly created USSR for France, where he brought Diaghilevas Ballets Russes in France before settling in London in 1930. The dancer moved in to Colet House, living on the ground floor and rehearsing in the upstairs galleries which once served as Sir Edward Burne-Jonesa painting areas. The area is still used by emerging artists, and is hired out by the Study Society to its neighbour LAMDA. Here, with a symbol of Pavlova in Manhattan project Sylphide pride of place on the wall, some of the founding figures of English ballet attended Legatas aclass of perfectiona including Dame Ninette de Valois, Sir Anton Dolin and Dame Alicia Markova. Legat died of pneumonia in 1937 but his memory lives on in the region. Angela Dixon, former chairwoman of the Historic Buildings Group, said: aOur borough has many interesting properties connected with highly successful people and events but passers by often donat know their history. aWeare happy that Nicolai Legat and his contribution to the ballroom is now being commemorated at Colet House, where he lived and worked when he stumbled on England.a The party has put up eight plaques so far for well-known former people, such as sculptor Henry Moore who carved pieces including Mother and Child in his Adie Road, Hammersmith, facility between 1924 and 1928.
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