Erik Bruhn

At 57 years old, Erik Bruhn physical status not available right now. We will update Erik Bruhn's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

He was taken permanently into the company in 1947 at the age of eighteen. Bruhn took the first of his frequent sabbaticals from the Danish company in 1947, dancing for six months with the short-lived Metropolitan Ballet in England, where he formed his first major partnership, with the Bulgarian ballerina Sonia Arova. He returned to the Royal Danish Ballet in the spring of 1948 and was promoted to soloist in 1949, the highest level a dancer can attain in the Danish ballet. Later in 1949, he again took a leave of absence and joined American Ballet Theatre in New York City, where he would dance regularly for the next nine years, although his home company continued to be the Royal Danish Ballet.

The turning point in Bruhn's international career came on 1 May 1955 with his début in the role of Albrecht in Giselle partnering Dame Alicia Markova, nearly twenty years his senior, in a matinée with Ballet Theatre in New York after only three days of rehearsal. The performance caused a sensation. Dance critic John Martin, writing in The New York Times, called it "a date to write down in the history books, for it was as if the greatest Giselle of today were handing over a sacred trust to what is probably the greatest Albrecht of tomorrow." In an article entitled "The Matinée that Made History" in Dance News in June 1955, P. W. Manchester wrote:

Bruhn formally resigned from the Danish ballet in 1961, by which time he had become internationally known as a phenomenon, although he continued to dance periodically with the company as a guest artist. In May 1961, he returned to Ballet Theatre for its New York season. In its 5 May issue, Time magazine published a major article on the dancer and his art:

During the next 10 years, Bruhn formed long relationships as a guest artist not only with Ballet Theatre but with most all of the major ballet companies in Europe and North America, including the New York City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the Paris Opera Ballet, and London's Royal Ballet. He was best known for his lead roles in La Sylphide, Giselle, Frederick Ashton's Romeo and Juliet, and Swan Lake. John Cranko made Daphnis and Chlöe on him in 1962 at the Stuttgart Ballet, which Bruhn considered his favorite from amongst the ballets created specifically for him. He was also acclaimed in dramatic roles, such as Jean in Birgit Cullberg's Miss Julie, the Moor in José Limón's The Moor's Pavane, and Don José in Roland Petit's Carmen. In addition to Sonia Arova, Bruhn had significant dance partnerships with a large and unusually varied number of ballerinas: the Americans Cynthia Gregory, Nora Kaye, Allegra Kent, and Maria Tallchief; the Russian Natalia Makarova; the Dane Kirstin Simone; the British Nadia Nerina; and, most famously, with the Italian Carla Fracci.

In his book, Beyond Technique (1968), Bruhn discussed his thoughts on partnering:

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