Maurice Pion

Maurice Pion (11 September 1801, Paris – 14 February 1869, Warsaw) was a French ballet dancer, director of the Warsaw Ballet and head of the ballet school in Warsaw, director of an itinerant ballet company.

Biography Theater career He began his career at the "Ambigu" theater in Paris. In 1818 he arrived in Warsaw with a group of French dancers and then (until 1825) was the first dancer of the Warsaw Ballet. In 1823, together with Julia Mierzyńska, he worked on the production of Wedding in Ojców as ballet master. After a year's stay in Paris (1825–1826), he returned to Warsaw and was appointed director of the Warsaw Ballet and head of the ballet school. After his retirement (1843), he organized his own ballet company, with which he toured various cities: Vilno, Minsk, Kalisz, Mogilev, Kyiv, Chișinău, Odesa, Zhytomyr and Kharkiv. In 1847 he established a partnership with Kajetan Nowiński. From 1852, Kyiv was the permanent home of the ensemble.

He played several roles. Pion staged ballets in which he also danced. Later he returned to Warsaw, where he worked as a teacher at a ballet school between 1861 and 1864. Adolf Stanisław, Kornelia and Władysław Stanisław were also professionally involved in the theater.