Marie-Jeanne Godwin was an American ballet dancer.
20 Facts About Marie-Jeanne
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Marie-Jeanne was one of the first students of George Balanchine's School of American Ballet.
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Marie-Jeanne then joined Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, before briefly returning to the New York City Ballet in 1953, and retired in 1954.
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Marie-Jeanne Pelus was born on August 12,1920, in Manhattan, New York.
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Marie-Jeanne was the only child of a French milliner mother and an Italian chef father, both immigrants.
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Marie-Jeanne was born on her family's kitchen table because while her father was cooking dinner, her mother went into labor.
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Marie-Jeanne saw her first ballet on New Year's Eve 1933, when her mother "dragged" her to a show danced by Colonel de Basil's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which included George Balanchine's Cotillon and Michel Fokine's Les Sylphides, performed by Alexandra Danilova, Tamara Toumanova, Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabouchinska.
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Marie-Jeanne's teachers included Pierre Vladimiroff, Muriel Stuart, Dorothie Littlefield, Anatole Vilzak, Ludmilla Schollar and Anatole Oboukhoff.
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In 1937,17-year-old Marie-Jeanne joined the Ballet Caravan, a touring company organized by Lincoln Kirstein.
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Marie-Jeanne chose to drop her surname, Pelus, as she thought the audience might find it awkward, and people frequently pronounced her surname incorrectly.
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In 1941, Marie-Jeanne joined the American Ballet Caravan, merged from Ballet Caravan and American Ballet, and Balanchine's first US company.
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Marie-Jeanne got married in 1942, and the news infuriated Balanchine.
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Marie-Jeanne moved to Buenos Aires with her husband, and stopped dancing while she was trying to get pregnant.
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In 1944, Marie-Jeanne danced with Marquis de Cuevas's Ballet International, where she created a role in Andre Eglevsky's Colloque Sentimental.
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In 1948, Marie-Jeanne joined Ballet Society, where Balanchine cast her as the First Symph in Bacchus and Ariadne.
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Marie-Jeanne left the New York City Ballet in 1949, when she married her second husband.
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Marie-Jeanne then joined Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in Europe.
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Marie-Jeanne, who was associated with Balanchine throughout her career, occasionally coached other dancers her Balanchine roles, including a 1996 rehearsal for Concerto Barocco that was filmed for the Balanchine Foundation archive.
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Marie-Jeanne moved to Gainesville, Florida, in the 1960s, after Godwin accepted a teaching position at the University of Florida.
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On December 28,2007, Marie-Jeanne died from congestive heart failure, aged 87.