Valete Madame Kira Bousloff 1914 - 2001

Born in Monte Carlo in 1914, Kira moved to Paris with her family to study ballet. Her teachers included a number of former dancers of the Imperial Russian Ballet. At seventeen she joined Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and as a member of this company toured Europe and America, working with some of the most celebrated choreographers of the day.

Kira Bousloff first came to Australia with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet in September 1938. The company toured Australia, giving over 170 performances ranging from the classics to the avant-garde. The repertoire included ballets with costume and set designs by Bakst, Benois, de Chirico, Derain, Goncharova, Larionov, Miro and Rouault. This experience was the foundation for the rich heritage Madame Bousloff was to pass on to Australian dancers and audiences alike.

Madame Bousloff remained in Australia and became involved with a number of ballet groups in Melbourne. She concentrated on teaching, choreographing her own ballets and re-staging ballets from the Ballets Russes. In 1952 Kira moved to Perth, finding immediately an affinity with the environment.

"When I came to the airport in little Perth at the end of the world, I put my feet on the ground, I looked around, and I said loudly and strongly, 'This is where I'm going to live, and this is where I'm going to die...This is my place."

With commitment, determination and tenacity Kira Bousloff founded West Australian Ballet in the same year of arrival in Western Australia. Her ambition was the creation of a Western Australian Ballet company which performed ballet with themes and stories inspired by Australian legends, with sets designed by local artists and music composed by fellow Australians. The most memorable works included The Beach Inspector and the Mermaid (1958), Kooree and the Mists (1960) and Fire at Ross' Farm (1961). The creation of a unique identity in Australian dance had firm foundations in these works.

Madame Bousloff was the Artistic Director of West Australian Ballet from 1952 to 1969, now a full-time, professional ballet company. In 1961 Kira had started to focus on her real joy of teaching young dancers.

"I see them coming. I see them going, some only drifting through my life. They are all there, filling my heart to overflowing, the old and the new from the past to the present. Watching them closely, I give them all I have learned and know…. young people full of hope."

Madame Bousloff's magnificent generosity of spirit and passion was acknowledged in her being awarded the medal of the Order of Australia in 1987, for her contribution to the development of dance in Australia. In 1998 she was named a Western Australian State Living Treasure, and in 2000 she was awarded The Lifetime Achievement Award for Dance from  HYPERLINK "http://www.australiadancing.org/" Dance Australia. Kira Bousloff continued to support the company she founded and attended West Australian Ballet's performances up until her death in 2001.