Vincenzo Celli was an American ballet dancer, choreographer, and teacher.
15 Facts About Vincenzo Celli
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Vincenzo Celli was known as a performer and choreographer in Italy, and in the US as a teacher of the Cecchetti method of ballet training.
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Vincenzo Celli, born as Vincenzo Yacullo in Salerno, Italy, emigrated with his parents to Chicago, Illinois, at an early age.
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Vincenzo Celli was first exposed to ballet as a teenager and was awed by the movements of dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, whom he saw perform in 1916 during an American tour of the Ballets Russes, under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev.
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At 17, Celli moved to New York City, where he performed as an actor both on and off Broadway with the Washington Square Players.
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Vincenzo Celli then appeared in Bolm's production of The Birthday of the Infanta at the Chicago Opera.
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Vincenzo Celli made his Italian debut in a 1922 revival of Manzotti's spectacular ballet Excelsior at Milan's Teatro dal Verme.
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Vincenzo Celli spent the next fifteen years, from 1923 to 1938, dancing at La Scala.
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Vincenzo Celli began to choreograph, creating ballets for dozens of operas before he decided to leave Italy, where his position was endangered because of his refusal to join the Fascist party.
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Vincenzo Celli toured for several seasons as guest teacher with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and then opened a studio on Manhattan's West Side and began a highly successful private teaching career.
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Vincenzo Celli's classes adhered strictly to the Cecchetti system, which he regarded as the foundation of a complete dance education.
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Vincenzo Celli acknowledged her training, but he always considered himself the leading American authority on the Cechetti system.
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Vincenzo Celli was often referred to as "the son of Cecchetti," as he was the last of his favored private pupils.
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Vincenzo Celli married American mezzo-soprano Marion Ivell not long after her retirement from the opera stage in 1925.
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Vincenzo Celli's papers, containing address books, journals, correspondence, poems, scrapbooks, and photographs, were deposited in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, where they are available for public inspection.