Nini Theilade

Nini Arlette Theilade (15 June 1915 – 13 February 2018) was a Danish ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher.

Early life Theilade was born in Purwokerto on the island of Java, then in the Dutch East Indies, now in Indonesia. She was an only child. Her father, Hans Theilade, was a Danish engineer. Her mother, Joanna Catarina, Wijnschenk-Dom, was from the Netherlands but was of Polish, German, French and Indian extraction; she had trained as a dance instructor at Émile Jaques-Dalcroze's school in Switzerland. She was named "Nini", which means "99", because she was reportedly the 99th descendant of a maharajah. In her autobiography, published in 2006, she noted how her mother's ambition shaped the rest of her life. but the school only admitted adults at the time and she instead studied with Nadya Bryusova. It was such a success, she toured Europe and the United States. After the outbreak of war in 1939, the company toured in the Americas. and later in Portugal. where she died on 13 February 2018 at the age of 102.