XPost: alt.obituaries   
   From: invalid@invalid.net   
      
   Ballet legend Maria Tallchief dies at 88   
      
   April 12, 2013, 1:54 PM EST   
      
   By CARYN ROUSSEAU , Associated Press   
      
   CHICAGO (AP) ¡X Maria Tallchief, one of America's first great prima   
   ballerinas who gave life to such works as "The Nutcracker," ''Firebird,"   
   and other masterpieces from legendary choreographer George Balanchine, has   
   died. She was 88.   
      
   Tallchief died Thursday in Chicago, her daughter Elise Paschen said Friday.   
      
   Tallchief danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1942 to 1947,   
   but her career was most associated with the New York City Ballet, where she   
   worked from 1948 to 1965. Balanchine, the Russian-born dance genius, was   
   not only the company's director; in 1946, he became Tallchief's husband for   
   some years.   
      
   She told Women's Wear Daily in 2003 that when she first worked with   
   Balanchine she thought, "'I am seeing music. This is it!' I was a musician   
   myself, and I thought, 'I am in my place now.' I knew that that's the way I   
   wanted to dance."   
      
   Tallchief was one of five Oklahoma natives of American Indian descent who   
   rose to prominence in the ballet world from the 1940s through the 1960s.   
   She retired in 1965, when she started teaching the next generation of   
   dancers.   
      
   (...)   
      
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