Aged 19, he was commissioned from the academy in January 1939 as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and was promoted to Captain at the outbreak of World War II before being retired from active service in 1940. However, Danton did not receive his final discharge until late in 1945.[2]
Privately educated with Judith Espinosa, he passed the Royal Academy of Dancing's four exams with honours winning the Adeline Genée Silver Medal after just 18 months of classical ballet training although due to wartime metal shortages it was finally awarded in 2019.[4] During the war Danton studied intensively with the Russian teacher Vera Volkova.[5]
As a dancer, Danton appeared with touring ensembles across the UK, Europe, Australasia, and South America partnering ballerinas Svetlana Beriosova, Elsa Marianne von Rosen, Colette Marchand, Celia Franca, Irene Skorik, Lycette Darsonval, Sonia Arova, Mia Slavenska, Lynne Golding, and others. As a teacher and balletmaster, Danton worked extensively across the U.S. and South America for more than 65 years, teaching, coaching, and staging classical repertoire.[citation needed]
An important influence on the nascent national ballet companies in Caracas, Venezuela,[6] and Bogotá, Colombia, he was also the first classical ballet teacher to be employed at the Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, and the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, and taught at the Fokine School of Ballet, Ballet Arts, Carnegie Hall, and the Juilliard School in New York City.[7]
In 2013, aged 95, Danton continued to teach in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and also worked as a guest teacher at a number of schools and colleges including Belhaven University, where he staged Mikhail Fokine's Les Sylphides in the autumn of 2013. Turning 100 in 2019, he was still working.[8]
Danton died on 9 February 2022, at the age of 102.[9]
Personal life
Danton was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma so became a vegetarian at age 49.[10] Danton's brother had died from Hodgkin's lymphoma.[10] Danton attributed his longevity to his vegetarian diet, dancing and swimming.[10][11] He owned a vegetarian restaurant in Caracas.[1] His lacto-vegetarian diet consisted of carrot juice, organic vegetables, nuts, seeds and dairy products.[10] Danton was a non-smoker.[10]
Recognition
In the summer of 2001, Danton was part of an Artscape documentary film produced by ABC TV Arts about the history of ballet in Australia, Swan Lake – The Australian Ballet at 50. In 1951, Danton had performed the role of Siegfried with Lynne Golding and the National Ballet Theatre in the first full-length Australian production of Swan Lake, in Melbourne and on tour to every large and medium-sized town in Australia. The ballet was also performed on tour in New Zealand.[12]
In April 2011, Danton was part of the Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist Conference at the Royal Ballet Upper School.[14] In 2011, Danton along with choreographer Gillian Lynne and three other original cast members participated in a revival production of Robert Helpmann's ballet Miracle in the Gorbals. First created in 1944, the dance-drama is set in the notorious Glasgow 1940s slums, with characters including a beggar, a prostitute, a minister, two young lovers, and a suicidal woman.[15]
Danton was an important voice in Ismene Brown's 2012 BBC Radio 4 documentary Blackout Ballet about Mona Inglesby and the International Ballet Company,[16] and was part of the 2014 BBC TV documentary Dancing in the Blitz: How World War Two Made British Ballet.[17]
