CU-Boulder Friends of the Libraries will present "Backstage with Margot Fonteyn," a multimedia theatrical presentation highlighting the life of the famed British ballerina on Friday, Nov. 19.
The event will be held at 7 p.m. in the Center for British and Irish Studies on the fifth floor of CU-Boulder's Norlin Library. The program is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception.
Attendees should enter through the west doors of Norlin Library. Pay parking will be available at the Euclid Avenue Autopark.
"Backstage with Margot Fonteyn" will be performed by CU faculty member Robin Haig, a colleague of Fonteyn. The program is directed by M. Lee Potts, faculty member of CU's department of theatre and dance from 1970 to 2001. The theme of the production is the interaction between Fonteyn and Haig during their careers, and will include film and slides.
Haig, from Australia, won a Royal Academy Dance Scholarship at age 17 to London's Royal Ballet School. After graduation she joined the Royal Ballet Company at Covent Garden and toured to America and to Russia where Rudolf Nureyev's defection had just occurred in 1961.
In 1962 Dame Fonteyn invited Haig to join an eight- member concert group known as the "Fonteyn Follies." Haig then became more acquainted on a personal level with Fonteyn who soon formed a dance partnership with Nureyev. Haig herself later partnered with Nureyev in the ballets "La Sylphide" and "Sonate a Trois."
Haig has worked internationally as a dancer, choreographer and teacher as well as serving as director of the Western Australian Ballet. She was on the faculty of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., before coming to teach ballet technique and dance history at CU-Boulder in 1990.
Associate Professor Emerita Potts, whose collaboration with Haig on the Fonteyn program has won acclaim in the dance world, has directed more than 50 productions at CU. She has been a guest director in Sweden, Washington D.C., Minnesota and Texas and for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. She has been honored with a career achievement award for theatrical direction from the National Communication Association and with CU's Dorothy Martin Woman Faculty Award. Also an actor, Potts recently completed two performances for London's BBC Radio 4.
The Nov. 19 program is a CU-Boulder Friends of the Libraries' Treasures event, a series promoting the treasures that the CU-Boulder libraries and campus have to offer.
For more information call (303) 492-7511.