Olga Sławska-Lipczyńska

Olga Sławska (born Olga Prorubnikow-Lipczyńska; 2 June 1915 – 29 April 1991) was a Polish ballet dancer and choreographer. After 1945, she became one of the country's leading ballet teachers. She was a founder of the National Ballet School (Szkoła Baletowa) in Poznań.

Biography Olga Prorubnikow-Lipczyńska was born in Lviv, which at that time was the principal city of Galicia, a frontier region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was widely regarded as a Polish city and after 1918 most of the German minority left as Lviv was incorporated into the newly re-established Polish Republic. Olga Prorubnikow's decision to become a dancer came early, and when she was seven she became a pupil at the Warsaw Ballet School, attached to the Grand Theatre. Piotr Zajlich was among her first teachers. A couple of weeks before he was killed Karszo-Siedlewski drew up a new will in which he left a substantial amount of property to his finacée. She, therefore, found herself the owner of K.R.Vetter, a substantial brewery in Lublin, and of "Mon Plaisir", a comfortable villa in the then fashionable suburb on the edge of Warsaw known at that time as Błota. It is not clear how much practical benefit she received from her new property, however, since her late fiancé's will was only finalised in 1946, by means of a court settlement with the Karszo-Siedlewski family, shortly after which the brewery was taken over by the new Polish government.

After the war Sławska-Lipczyńska, now retired completely from her stage work, devoted her energies to teaching, working at the fringes of the theatre world to create love and respect for the theatrical arts. As part of this she organised dance groups in community centres. In 1945 the frontiers of Polish had changed dramatically, with the eastern third of the country (including Lviv, where Sławska had been born) becoming part of the Soviet Union and the eastern third of Germany becoming part of Poland. The changes were accompanied by massive ethnic cleansing programmes of during 1944–1946. In the north, Danzig, which since 1308 had functioned (not without recurring tensions) as a multi-cultural city, became Polish, and it was here that in 1950 Olga Sławska-Lipczyńska took a post as a teacher of classical dance at the Choreographic Academy ("Liceum Choreograficznym" ).

In 1951 plans were unfolded for an equivalent institution to be opened in Poznań. Olga Sławska-Lipczyńska became a founder and creator of the National Ballet School ("Szkoła Baletowa") in Poznań, managing the school in the key position as artistic director till 1970, following which she stayed on as a teacher of classical dance ("...od tańca klasycznego") till 1973. One of the ways in which she was able to ensure the highest standards at the Poznań ballet school involved recruitment. She was able to attract and select some of Poland's leading exponents of dance. Her appointees to the teaching staff included Barbara Kostrzewska and Teresa Kujawa. Celebrities from the world of Polish ballet from among her former pupils include Ewa Wycichowska and Juliusz Stańda. Polish ballet is also indebted to Sławska-Lipczyńska for her 1952 translation of Agrippina Vaganova's text book "Zasady tańca klasycznego" ("Principles of Classical Dance") which has become a near-universal primer for Polish teachers of classical dance.

Olga Sławska-Lipczyńska died at Poznań on 29 April 1991 meaning that, perhaps appropriately, her death coincided with that year's International Dance Day. The dance academy was renamed in her honour, "Ogólnokształcąca Szkoła Baletowa im. Olgi Sławskiej-Lipczyńskiej".