Ivor Forbes Guest

Ivor Forbes Guest DUniv MA FRAD (14 April 1920 – 30 March 2018 ) was a British historian and writer, best known for his study of ballet. He was chairman of the Royal Academy of Dance for twenty three years (1970–93) and has been a Vice-President since 1993 and Secretary then Trustee of the Radcliffe Trust. In 1997 he was made a Doctor of the University by the University of Surrey, its highest honorary doctorate.

He was married to the movement notation expert Ann Hutchinson Guest and acted as a trustee of the Language of Dance Centre, which she founded.

Early life

Ivor Guest was born on 14 April 1920 in Chislehurst, Kent, England. He married Ivor's mother, Christian Forbes-Tweedie on 30 July 1918.

Ballet historian Photo of the ballerina Giuseppina Bozzachi (1853–1870) costumed as Swanilda in the ballet Coppélia. Paris, France, 1870, reproduced in Guest's The Ballet of the Second EmpireGuest's first book, Napoleon III in England (1952), came from an interest in his birth town's association with the exiled Napoleon III. Then, despite a successful career as a lawyer, Guest spent holidays and other leisure time researching the ballet of the Second Empire in the archives of the Bibliothèque de l'Opéra in Paris, producing two volumes on the subject entitled The Ballet of the Second Empire (1953, 1955).

He received tributes in Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research in 1995,

Publications Guest's writing focuses primarily on the ballet in Paris, at the Opéra, in the years 1770 to 1870. He also chronicles the international careers of some of ballet's stars.

Ballet The Ballet of the Second Empire, A. and C. Black (1953) ASIN B0007ITA5G Fanny Cerrito: Life of a Romantic Ballerina, London: Phoenix House, (1956) Victorian ballet-girl,: The tragic story of Clara Webster, A. and C. Black (1957), 136 pages ASIN B0006AVBAM Adeline Genée: a lifetime of ballet under six reigns; based on the personal reminiscences of Dame Adeline Genée-Isitt, D.B.E., A. and C. Black, 1958, 207 pages The Alhambra ballet, Dance Perspectives, inc., 1959, 72 pages The Dancer's Heritage: A Short History of Ballet, Adam & Charles Black; First Edition & First Printing edition (1 Jan 1960), La fille mal gardée, Dancing Times, 1960, 71 pages Dandies and dancers, Dance Perspectives Foundation, 1969, 49 pages Fanny Elssler, A & C Black Publishers Ltd (28 May 1970), 284 pages Romantic Ballet in England, Pitman Publishing; 2nd Revised edition (27 June 1972), 195 pages Letters from a Ballet Master: The Correspondence of Arthur Saint-Léon (1981), 158 pages Adventures of a Ballet Historian, Dance Horizons; 1st edition (28 March 1983), 131 pages Jules Perrot, Princeton Book Company Publishers (December 1984), 383 pages Ballet in Leicester Square: The Alhambra and the Empire 1860–1915, Dance Books (May 1992), 192 pages The Ballet of the Enlightenment: The Establishment of the Ballet D'Action in France, 1770–1793, Princeton Book Company Publishers (February 1997), 456 pages Ballet Under Napoleon, Dance Horizons (May 2002), 584 pages The Paris Opera Ballet, Princeton Book Co Pub (30 April 2006), 160 pages The Romantic Ballet in Paris, Dance Books Ltd (1 February 2008), 472 pages The Divine Virginia: Biography of Virginia Zucchi, Dance Books (10 July 2008), 204 pages

Other history Napoleon III in England, London, British Technical and General Press; 1st Edition. edition (1 Jan 1952), 212 pages ASIN B0006DASOE Dr. John Radcliffe and his Trust, Radcliffe Trust, 1991, 595 pages

Honours In 1997, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award for services to ballet which is the RAD's highest honour; he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.