Ballerina Jacquelin De Min has died at the age of 76 at her home in Cannes after a long illness.
She began dancing with the ballet company at the Opera House in Strasbourg when she was 16, and soon after with the Gran Ballet du Marquise De Cuevas, followed by the ballet companies in Nice and Geneva. In 1968 she became a Principal Dancer with the Gran Ballet Classique de France, and in 1970 was guest with the Cullberg Ballet.
It was in 1972 when her long involvement with Italian dance began when she was asked by Carla Fracci to be a member of the Carla Fracci Company.
Fracci, together with her director husband Beppe Menegatti said,
Dear Jacquelin, we worked so much together – how we’ll miss you! With love, Carla and Beppe.
De Min also worked with Rudolph Nureyev and Evelyne De Sutter on Giselle, and with Noella Pontois, Anna Razzi and Paolo Bortoluzzi for Les Sylphides in Toulouse.
She was choreographer and Maitre de Ballet at the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet of Albania, Teatro Verde in Trieste, the Arena in Verona, and the companies in Catania and Palermo. She mounted Giselle with Alessandra Ferri for the Naples company at Teatro San Carlo, a ballet she also put on stage for the Rome Opera Ballet when Fracci directed the company.
From 1988 al 2008 she was the director of the dancing school which bore her name in Vallecrosia, Liguria, just over an hour by car along the French and Italian Rivieras from her home and hometown, Cannes.
Valentina Mazzone, the vice-director of De Min’s school, said,
She lived for dance… She was my teacher for 34 years… like a mother to me. She was very severe, meticulous, and strong, but also modest.
Jacquelin De Min died on 21 March 2019.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.
I taught for a few months at her school in Italy in early 2000’s before returning to the stage. Her pupils were very dedicated and almost professional. I also participated in one of her school performances as a guest artist and have very fond memories of my time working there. I had heard she was not well recently but didn’t know it was so bad. I hope she didn’t suffer too much. This is a very sad news…