| Activity | Dancer. Founder of the Ballets Jooss dance company. Well-known dance work 'The Green Table', which caused a sensation at its first appearance in 1932. Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst saw 'The Green Table' in July 1933, met Jooss and subsequently invited him and the ballet company to Dartington, acquiring an interest in the company. He arrived shortly afterward in 1934 to escape persecution in Nazi Germany. He used Dartington as a base for his touring company and the centre for the Jooss-LEEDER School of Dance. He was forced by wartime regulations to leave Dartington in 1939 (which came within the eight mile coastal restrictions imposed upon aliens) he re-formed the company in Cambridge and later went to the United States. The Ballets Jooss was finally disbanded in 1947 and in 1949 Jooss returned to Germany. The company made a reappearance in 1963/1964 and toured with success. In 1968 Jooss retired, after 45 years in the professional theatre. He died as the result of injuries sustained in a car crash. |