Jenny Hasselquist (1894-1978) - Mikhail Fokine Soloist and Royal Swedish Ballet Prima Ballerina

This is film of Jenny Hasselquist performing ’Die weiße Rose’ (’The White Rose’), which could equally be described as ’The Dying Rose’, as you’ll see when you watch the ballet. The sequence comes from the German ’health and efficiency’ film ’Wege Zu Kraft und Schonheit’ (’Path to the Power & Beauty’, 1925). The Swedish ballerina and silent film actor deserves, I think, wider recognition than she currently enjoys. An article in ’Spel en dans’ (September, 1925) ranked her with Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina and the German modern dancer, Lili Green. Just reporting mind you. Educated from 1906 at the Ballet School of the Royal Theater in Stockholm, Hasselqvist was a principal ballerina of the Royal Swedish Ballet from 1915 to 1919. She joined the Paris-based ’Les Ballets suédois’ in 1920, and enjoyed five seasons of avant garde dance with the company in the French capital. Considered a second class imitation of