| Activity | The Ballet Jooss was the company founded by the choreographer Kurt Jooss. The Company, along with the Ballet School run by Sigurd Leeder, was based in Essen. After escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 Dorothy Elmhirst invited them to Dartington. The Ballet Jooss arrived in 1935 with twenty dancers, a general manager, a stage manager and two pianists, together with the Ballet School which brought twenty three students and three teachers. The Ballet Company continued to tour Europe and America from their base at Dartington until 1940 when Dartington came within the eight mile coastal restrictions imposed upon aliens. The Ballet Company moved to Cambridge and the Jooss-Leeder School of Dance was closed. The Ballet Company went to America and was finally disbanded in 1947. |