The Original Ballet Russe was a ballet company established in 1931 by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil as a successor to the Ballets Russes, founded in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev. The company assumed the new name Original Ballet Russe after a split between de Basil and Blum. De Basil led the renamed company, while Blum and others founded a new company under the name Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo. It was a large scale professional ballet company which toured extensively in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the United States, and Central and South America. It closed down operations in 1947.
Helene Kirsova stars in Petrouchka, Theatre Royal, Sydney, 11 January 1937. Photo from the Sam Hood collection.
Vassily Grigorievich Voskresensky, usually referred to as Colonel Wassily de Basil, was a Russian ballet impresario.
Wassily de Basil, 1940
Members of the group aboard RMS Maloja, 1 September 1938.