Making of Markova

The frail Lilian Alicia Marks, with flat feet and knock knees requiring remedial dance classes is discovered to be a child prodigy. She becomes the youngest-ever soloist in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes at age 14, re-born under the Russified name Alicia Markova. George Balanchine’s first ballet was choreographed for her and Diaghilev bonded with the tiny dancer like no one else, considering adoption. She would become the greatest classical ballerina of her time and one of the most independent dancers in an era of prima donnas, instrumental in the formation of almost every major ballet company in the US and UK while supporting her entire family. Tina Sutton reveals the astonishing rise of a poor, single Jewish woman, despite rampant anti-Semitism and sexism, to one of the 20th century's great artists.