Mia Slavenska

Mia Slavenska, née Čorak (20 February 1916 – 5 October 2002) was a Croatian-American soloist of the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo in 1938–1952 and 1954–1955. Mia was born in Slavonski Brod in the Croatian family of the pharmacist Milan Čorak and his wife, housewife Gedwiga Čorak. When their daughter was one year old, the family moved to Zagreb. There Mia studied ballet at the "Josephine Weiss school" and the Russian émigré, ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater and Diaghilev's Russian Seasons Margarita Frohman. Taking the stage from the age of five, at the age of sixteen she became the prima ballerina of the ballet troupe of the HNK in Zagreb. For some time she studied in Vienna with Leo Dubois. Due to the royalist dictatorship of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under a Serbian monarchy, she was banned from performing in her native Croatia which prompted her and her mother to relocate to Berlin in 1935. One year later, she would perform to great acclaim at the 1936 Berlin Dance Olympics. Her mother enrolled her under a new pseudoyn, Mia Slavenska, where the Croatian dancers were legally bound to perform under the banner of Yugoslavia. Despite the prestige of winning the event, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia continued to refuse her to dance in her Croatian homeland.

Having moved to Paris in 1937, in the same year she starred in two films - with Marcel L'Herbier in "Nights of Fire" and with Jean Benoit-Levy and Marie Epstein in "The Dying Swan".

She studied with Bronislava Nijinska and other Russian teachers. In 1938 she entered the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo. Together with ballerinas Markova, Danilova and Tumanova she was the leading ballerina of the troupe.

In 1944, she organized her own troupe Ballet Variante in Hollywood, which existed for some time. In the early 1950s (1952 ), when the Monte Carlo Ballet ceased operations, together with Frederic Franklin organized the Slavenska Franklin Ballet Company, which existed for three years and closed for economic reasons. Their most significant production was the ballet A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the play of the same name by Tennessee Williams (1952, choreographer Valerie Bettis, Her Majesty's Theater, Montreal), in which Mia played the role of Blanche Dubois.

After Franklin, at the request of the impresario Serge Denhem, reassembled the troupe of the Russian Ballets, she danced there for a while, until Denhem began to vigorously promote Nina Novak. In the second half of the 1950s she danced at the London Festival Ballet with Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova.

Among the partners were Oleg Tupin, Frederic Franklin and Milorad Mišković, with whom she was a famous ballet couple of that time.

Mia Čolak was married to Dr. K. Neumann. She died in Los Angeles on 5 October 2003.

Her cremated ashes are interred at the Mirogoj Cemetery in Zagreb. Video footage of the Roman Catholic procession for her funeral can be seen in the documentary created by her daughter titled "Mia: A Dancer's Journey".