SCHUBERT, LIA

SCHUBERT, LIA (1926– ), dancer and choreographer. Schubert was born in Vienna and trained with the Russian ballerinas Preobrazhenska and Egoreva in Paris. During World War II, her family was deported but she escaped. After the war, she worked with Leonid Massine and, in 1950, was a dancer and the choreographer of the Malmö City Theater in Sweden. In 1953, she moved to Stockholm and, in 1957, founded the Ballet Academy at Stockholm University, which she directed until she left for Israel in 1968. In 1969, Schubert and Caj Lottman, known professionally as Caj Selling, the male star of the Royal   Swedish Ballet, founded the Institute for Dance in Haifa. The Institute comprised a children's dance school, a two-year training course for dance teachers, and, in 1971–74, a modern dance company called The Dancers Stage. In 1974, Schubert and Lottman established The Haifa Piccolo Ballet, which performed in the style of classical ballet. In 1976, Selling left the company to become the artistic director of the batsheva dance company . Although the Institute was highly esteemed, it accumulated debts and, in 1980, Schubert left Israel and returned to Sweden. Most dance teachers in Haifa and the north of Israel, as well as many dancers, were students at the Institute. (Ruth Eshel (2nd ed.)