Ivan F. Novikoff, 102; Ballet Master Fled Russia

Ivan F. Novikoff, 102, a Russian immigrant ballet master whose students included Robert Joffrey, died March 20 in Seattle of pneumonia.

Born in Kazan, Russia, Novikoff studied at the Imperial Ballet School along with Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova. He fled from Russia after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, taught dance to the children of Russian soldiers in Harbin, China, and emigrated to the United States in 1923.

Settling in Seattle, he founded the Novikoff School of Russian-American Ballet and eventually opened more than 20 schools in Washington state and Oregon. In 1944 he composed the ballet “Swan Queen and the Prince.”

Novikoff’s thousands of students ranged from basketball players to Joffrey, who founded the Joffrey Ballet School-American Ballet Center in New York in 1952 and the Robert Joffrey Ballet in 1956.