Serge Lifar

April 2, 1905 — December 15, 1986

Dancer
choreographer
Born in Kyiv

A Kyivan who led the Paris Opera Ballet for over 30 years. He sang in the St Sophia Cathedral choir and took his first ballet steps in Bronislava Nijinska’s Kyiv studio.

Biography

Serge (Serhiy) Lifar was born on 2 April 1905 (per the parish register; some sources give 1904) in Pyrohiv, now part of Kyiv. He attended the Alexander and later the Eighth Kyiv Gymnasium, sang in the choir of St Sophia’s Cathedral, studied violin and took piano classes at the Kyiv Conservatory.

As a teenager he joined Bronislava Nijinska’s School of Movement, a Kyiv ballet studio that ran from 1919 to 1921. After Nijinska emigrated she invited her best pupils to join Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and in 1923 Lifar left Kyiv.

In Paris he became Diaghilev’s leading dancer and, after Diaghilev’s death in 1929, took over the Paris Opera Ballet at the age of 24. He led it for more than three decades, staged over 200 ballets and in 1947 founded the Opera’s Institute of Choreography. He died in Lausanne on 15 December 1986.

Kyiv honours him today: the Kyiv Municipal Academy of Dance (with a memorial plaque, 2004), a street and a light-rail station bear his name. Another plaque is on Ivan Franko Square, and in 2019 a “Golden Shoe” mini-sculpture appeared on the wall of the Premier Palace Hotel.

Kyiv in their life

St Sophia’s Cathedral – sang in the cathedral choir as a boy.
Nijinska’s School of Movement – where he began ballet (1919–1921).
Serge Lifar Kyiv Municipal Academy of Dance – memorial plaque (2004).
Ivan Franko Square – memorial plaque; Serzha Lyfarya Street in Troieshchyna.