The genius of Frederick Ashton

A major season of works by the Royal Ballet will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Britain's foremost choreographer

He had the wit of Oscar Wilde, the glamour of the society photographer Cecil Beaton and used both to create some of the most important British ballets of the 20th century.

He had the wit of Oscar Wilde, the glamour of the society photographer Cecil Beaton and used both to create some of the most important British ballets of the 20th century.

A hundred years after the birth of the late Sir Frederick Ashton, his fans and dance heirs are mounting the biggest homage to his works since his official retirement galas in New York and London in 1970.

The celebrations began with a grand party at the Royal Opera House in London last night where some of the guests were those who worked with Ashton from his early years through to the peak of his career as founder choreographer of the Royal Ballet.

They included famous ballerinas such as Antoinette Sibley and Beryl Grey, dancers such as Pauline Clayden and Alexander Grant, who originally created some of Ashton's most famous roles, and more recent ballet luminaries such as Anthony Dowell.

Next month, the Royal Ballet embarks on a major season showcasing the works of Ashton, whose distinctively English style of ballet came to define the company. Starting on 22 October and running through to next summer, there will be 13 ballets, full-length and one-act, and a series of divertissements, all choreographed by Ashton, alongside works by his favourite contemporaries.

Highlights will include one of his earliest ballets, A Wedding Banquet, and a three-act ballet, Sylvia, to music by Léo Delibes, which has not been performed for 40 years but has been recreated from film, notes and personal recollections. Ashton was trying to revive it when he died.

Several of the celebratory Ashton evenings are included in the Travelex-sponsored season of top-price tickets for £10.

Monica Mason, the Royal Ballet's director, said Ashton, who was known at Covent Garden as Sir Fred, was a "choreographic genius" who was tremendously influential for at least four decades from the 1930s. Only Kenneth MacMillan can rival him in 20th century British ballet and George Balanchine in America. Having trained as a dancer in Paris, Ashton was creating work for Marie Rambert in London when he was spotted by Dame Ninette de Valois. De Valois was responsible for establishing the tradition of ballet in London and was looking for people to join her in what would eventually become the Royal Ballet.

She immediately saw in Ashton the choreographer she needed and his role at the heart of British dance was secured.

Miss Mason said: "People often ask, 'What is the English style and where did it come from?' Without doubt, the foundation of this style was laid down by Frederick Ashton.

"He had a quality to what he made that you can't teach, rather like composing great music. He had a vision of how he wanted dances to move. Glamour, romance, instinctive musicality, speed and lyricism are probably the qualities that best define his choreography.

"He was also extremely witty. The combination was something uniquely Fred, uniquely English."

Many of his works remain in the repertoire, although Miss Mason admitted that the number of Ashton classics presented each year changes as new ballets are created and there may never be as big a festival again. "We're blessed with a very large repertoire [of Ashton works] but there are only so many performances each season. Naturally every season contains a certain amount of Ashton but never to the degree he will be this year," she said.

"The last time we did an enormous homage to him was 1970 with a big gala performance in New York - he was very, very popular in America - and another big one in London. At the time people like Dame Margot Fonteyn and Sir Robert Helpman, all the people who inspired him, were still alive. But they're not now.

"This is probably the last time you could have a season quite this large honouring him. Time moves on. But 100 years is a very special landmark and it's entirely appropriate that this season we're filled with Ashton from start to finish."

One of his most famous partnerships was with the dancer Margot Fonteyn for whom he created leading roles for a quarter of a century. "It was a unique relationship. She happened to be there when he was starting to make his works and she inspired him," Miss Mason said. "He loved the person that she was and she could recognise the genius that he was. They needed each other."

But he also produced works for other ballet greats such as Rudolph Nureyev and roles such as the Ugly Sisters in Cinderella, one of which he memorably created on stage himself with Helpman as the other high-camp turn.

Frederick Ashton was born on 17 September 1904 in Ecuador to English parents and raised in Peru. After seeing Anna Pavlova perform in Lima when he was 13, his heart was set on the world of dance. The following year, he was sent to school in England where the passion was further inflamed by seeing Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He soon began to study dance with one of the Ballets Russes' leading choreographers, Léonide Massine, and had a brief career on stage in Paris before returning to England and work with Marie Rambert.

Ross MacGibbon, the BBC's head of dance, said Rambert was crucial in encouraging Ashton to choreograph. "He was dancing in her company, but she was the one who saw his potential and showed him he could choreograph and not just dance - because not many people can. He watched her work and she helped form him as a choreographer." His first big success, Façade, in 1931, is regularly revived. But within four years, he had been invited to join de Valois's company, which was then performing at the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells, but was the core of what would became the Royal Ballet.

Miss Mason said: "She was looking for someone who could set the style and general tone for the work at the start of this organisation. The extraordinary thing about Dame Ninette was she always believed it was possible to set up a national ballet company."

He went on to create full-length traditional ballets such as Sylvia and Ondine as well short dramatic works like Daphnis and Chloë. Alongside his narrative pieces, he also produced abstract works such as Symphonic Variations.

And even after his official retirement from the Royal Ballet in 1970, he continued to work. For services to British ballet, Ashton was created a CBE in 1950 and was knighted in 1962. Now 16 years after his death at the age of 83, the centenary of his birth is being celebrated off stage as well as on.

Oberon Books is producing the most comprehensive book of images of Ashton and his works ever published. Taken from the Royal Opera House archives, personal snapshots and works by Cecil Beaton, the £20 volume charts Ashton's life in 130 photographs.

The season is further accompanied by free exhibitions of photographs, costumes and designs relating to Ashton's work in the Opera House, which is open to the public free during the day. An academic examination of his work and influence will take place in a separate series of events. And for those who cannot get to Covent Garden in person, BBC4 is stepping in with its own contribution.

After broadcasting Ashton's Cinderella last Christmas, this November the channel is showing a triple bill of Scènes de Ballet: one of his acknowledged masterpieces, Daphnis and Chloë and some divertissements. And in February, it is showing La Fille Mal Gardée.

Ross MacGibbon, who danced with the Royal Ballet in many Ashton works before joining the BBC, said it was a pleasure to be making such a big commitment to showing these works to a wider public. "Ashton and Balanchine and Kenneth MacMillan are the three most important choreographers of the 20th century in terms of ballet. They're all dead and everyone is desperately trying to find the next one," Mr MacGibbon said. "Ashton had such a range and his works were technically demanding. The Americans make a great fuss about Balanchine and it is right that we in Britain should take Ashton seriously. His pieces ... don't look dated."