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Austin Arts Hall of Fame: Alexandra Nadal and Eugene Slavin
Third in a series of capsule profiles for the Austin Arts Hall of Fame, part of the Austin Critics Table Awards, held 7 p.m. June 1 at Cap City Comedy Club. The event is free and informal. Some other capsule profiles will appear in the Seeing Things blog.
Among its leading lights were Eugene Slavin and Alexandra Nadal, who incorporated the company and raised its professional status, hiring 14 dancers in 1982. They brought in top guests, such as Mikhail Baryshnikov.
In the grand ballet tradition, Slavin and Nadal learned directly from masters who learned directly from the greats of dance’s classical era. Born in Buenos Aires, Slavin trained at the Teatro Colon, then worked in New York under Anatole Vilzak, who succeeded Vaslav Nijinsky at the Maryinsky Theatre. He made his American debut at Carnegie Hall and joined the famed Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, where he partnered the legendary Maria Tallchief. He began his choreographing career with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
Nadal was born in the West Indies and studied in Chicago with Russia’s Andre Commiacoff and former Sadler’s Wells Ballet soloists Richard Ellis and Christine DuBoulay. In New York she continued her studies with Maria Swoboda and Leon Danielian (who later taught at the University of Texas). At 17, she joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo’s American tour. She danced for superstars such as Agnes de Mille, Leonide Massine and Eliot Feld.
Since the 1980s, the couple has run the Slavin Nadal School of Ballet in North Austin, extending the classical tradition through successive Central Texas generations.
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