Mordkin returned to teaching at his Carnegie Hall studio. Mikhail Mordkin was informed that he was no longer needed to teach or choreograph for the company, and only one of his ballets was ever produced by Ballet Theatre. In September of 1939, the nucleus of the Mordkin Ballet was reorganized into Ballet Theatre. Chase and Pleasant began to plan for a larger company, with more choreographers and dancers, and different artistic goals. The company continued to tour with Mordkin's ballets, however, many new ideas were developing. A more professional Mordkin Ballet emerged, and dancers the calibre of Patricia Bowman, Nina Stroganova, Karen Conrad, Edward Caton, and Vladimir Dokoudovsky were hired. Richard Pleasant managed the school and was later made secretary of the organization. In 1938, the company was reorganized under Advanced Arts, Inc., with Rudolf Orthwine as president. The Mordkin Ballet began to tour nationwide with a small repertory of ballets choreographed by Mordkin. Advance Productions, with Lucia Chase as the major stockholder, was incorporated in March, 1937, to sponsor the company. Plans for the student company became more ambitious. On December 19, 1936, the company presented Sleeping Beauty,sponsored by the Woman's Club of Waterbury, Connecticut, with Lucia Chase and Dimitri Romanoff in the leading roles. By 1936, according to an advertisement of the time, his school offered “complete ballet training, mimo-drama classes, rehearsal group prepare ballets for performances.” This group, the Mikhail Mordkin Ballet, was an outlet for advanced students (with Mordkin himself dancing main character parts). He left Russia in 1923, settled in New York, and in 1927, opened a ballet school in Carnegie Hall. In 1910, he partnered Anna Pavlova at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and on a tour of the United States. He was a graduate of the Imperial Ballet School there and eventually became a leading dancer at the Bolshoi Theatre. Mikhail Mordkin was born in Moscow in 1881.
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