Obituary: Alexander Grant CBE, ballet dancer who delighted Festival audiences performing with Dame Margot Fonteyn

ALEXANDER Grant was one of the most popular figures in the Royal Ballet (RB) during the famously adventurous years under the directorship of Dame Ninette de Valois. Grant had many roles created for him by Sir Frederick Ashton and although never a star dancer in the heroic mould Grant had a strong personality and technique that ensured all his performances had a zest and brilliance.

One particular example of this was Ashton’s masterpiece La Fille mal gardée in which Grant created the role of the simpleton Alain in 1960. Grant brought the curtain down after each act – on the conclusion of the first act flying high over the maypole dancers and at the end Grant steals on to the empty stage to claim his prized red umbrella and end the ballet in joyous style.

Grant was a frequent visitor to Scotland. He often came to both Edinburgh and Glasgow in the days when the RB regularly toured out of London.

There was a very special visit in 1965 when he danced with Nadia Nerina who created Lise, the lead ballerina role in La Fille. Grant came to seven Edinburgh Festivals – including the first in 1947, when he danced in a cast led by Margot Fonteyn in The Sleeping Beauty.

The company returned the following year when Grant made a startling impression in the role of the barber in Mam’zelle Angot. It was a role taught to him by the choreographer, Leonide Massine, to which Grant brought a very personal and inventive style.

In 1951 Grant appeared in several ballets with the RB at the Festival, notably The Rake’s Progress.

Other memorable visits included Swan Lake alongside Fonteyn and Beryl Grey in 1956; Grant’s dancing of the tarantella in the Act Two divertissements was widely praised and his renowned interpretation of Petrushka was seen in 1960. His final appearance was an unusual event at the Freemasons Hall in 1969.

The Music Theatre Ensemble mounted Stravinsky’s one act chamber opera and Grant joined fellow dancer Wayne Sleep and singers to provide a remarkable interpretation of a seldom heard work.

Alexander Grant was born in Wellington and began dance classes at the age of seven. At the end of the war he won a scholarship to study with the Royal Ballet School and within a few years Grant had joined the company performing at the Royal Opera House. He became particularly associated with character roles such as in Façade (1946) where he made a dramatic entrance through a hoop. An early major role was the Jester in Ashton’s first full length ballet for the RB, Cinderella.

Taxing roles followed – a statue in Ashton’s Sylvia in which Grant had to remain motionless throughout Act One only to come to life later to rescue the lovers. Other roles particularly associated with Grant were Bottom in Ashton’s The Dream (where he danced on pointe), Enigma Variations and A Month in the Country. Grant was also seen in the film of Tales of Beatrix Potter and retired from the RB in 1977. In all he had been a member of the company for 31 years – a considerable achievement for a dancer.

For five years from 1971, Grant directed the RB’s touring offshoot, Ballet For All, and in 1976 he moved to Toronto to take up the position of artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. In that time he broadened the company’s repertoire and introduced works by Jerome Robbins, Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan.

Grant returned to the UK in 1983 and was asked by the English National Ballet (ENB) to assist with the recreation of Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet that had never been performed in this country. He also danced some cameo roles with the company and acted as a teacher and adviser to both the ENB and RB.

Ashton died in 1988 and in his will bequeathed to Grant the rights for La Fille mal gardée and Façade. Grant then travelled the world supervising new productions and ensuring revivals were in keeping with the original concepts of the choreographer.

The dancer Leslie Edwards knew Grant from his arrival in Britain and they often danced together most memorably in La Fille mal gardée. In his autobiography Edwards painted a delightful picture of his friend. “Alexander was a talented, enchanting dancer, prone to injury: one would see him hobble through the stage door and perform a few of his own brand of warm-up exercises. Then go on stage and dance everyone else off it.”

Grant, who was awarded the CBE in 1965, is survived by his partner of 54 years, Jean-Pierre Gasquet, and his brother Garry Grant, also a former RB dancer. ALASDAIR STEVEN