Born in Berlin in 1924, Ludmilla Chiriaeff began her first dance lessons at six with Alexandra Nicolaïeva, who came from the Bolshoi. Michel Fokine, a friend of her father and her spiritual mentor, inspired and encouraged her to pursue choreography and teaching.
With the onset of World War II, her career at the Ballet of the Berlin Opera was interrupted. After the war, she relocated to Switzerland, where she founded her first company, the Ballets du Théâtre des Arts de Genève. In January 1952, Ludmilla Chiriaeff settled in Quebec. She then founded Les Ballets Chiriaeff, which gave its first performances in 1955 on Radio-Canada and would appear in over one hundred broadcasts.
In 1957, encouraged by various personalities, including Mayor Jean Drapeau, she transformed Les Ballets Chiriaeff into an official company and created Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Quebec's first professional ballet company, which has survived to this day. Shortly after, she established the Académie des Grands Ballets Canadiens, a school where she developed both recreational and academic dance training programs. During the 1966-1967 season, at the request of Quebec's Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Madame Chiriaeff founded the École supérieure de danse des Grands Ballets, a natural extension of the Academy, which would become the École supérieure de danse du Québec in 1979, the only accredited school for training professional ballet dancers in Quebec.
Starting in 1963, Ludmilla Chiriaeff surrounded herself with experienced choreographers such as Fernand Nault and Anton Dolin.
In 1975, Ludmilla Chiriaeff established a "ballet concentration" program at Pierre-Laporte School in the Sainte-Croix School Board, the first in Quebec to combine professional classical dance training with academic education. In 1979, she extended this professional dance training program to Cégep du Vieux Montréal. A few years later, in 1986, Madame Chiriaeff founded a ballet program for sixth-grade primary school students and secondary-level students at Laurier School in the Montreal Catholic School Commission, with ballet classes held at the École supérieure de danse du Québec.
With these schools and through the recruitment of top dancers across Quebec, the future of ballet was assured, as any Quebecer who met the requirements could obtain classical dance training through scholarships. In 1981, a project realized a dream she had held for twenty-five years: the creation of the Maison de la danse, a cornerstone of a concept integrating training, creation, and production.
Ludmilla Chiriaeff received many significant honors and distinctions beginning in 1957. In 1980, she was awarded the Denise-Pelletier Prize for Performing Arts by the Quebec government. She was also made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1984 and a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec in 1985. Additionally, she received three honorary doctorates from McGill University (1982), the University of Montreal (1982), and the Université du Québec (1988). In 1992, she was awarded the Nijinsky Medal, which was given to international artists in recognition of their important contribution to the world of dance. In November 1993, she was honored with the Governor General's Performing Arts Award. In 2022, the Government of Quebec named her a Historical Figure.
Thanks to her tireless enthusiasm and perseverance, Madame Chiriaeff, who passed away on September 22, 1996, significantly changed the image of dance in Quebec. Her legacy continues to inspire and shape numerous important activities to this day.
