July 5, 1922 ~ October 14, 2005

FRANO JELINCIC, Artist in Residence, was born in Yugoslavia, and since 1956, has lived and worked in Europe and America. He has been Ballet Master for the Pennsylvania Ball ~, Pittsburgh Ballet, Garden State BaIlet English National Ballet and the Ballet of the Hamburg Staatsoper He was Director of the Ballet at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb Yugoslavia. Mr. Jelincic has been a guest teacher with the Ballet of the Oslo Opera House, Stockholm University, the Royal Ballet School in London, and Ballet West in Utah. He has staged the great classics of the ballet repertoire - Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppelia, Romeo and Juliet, and Nutcracker - and also choreographed many short ballets (classical and other styles) and operas. He has choreographed for Yugoslavian Television and the PBS and CBS networks in Pittsburgh. Students who have studied with Mr. Jelincic are in companies around the world and some dancers that he has worked with are presently directors of New York City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and the English National Ballet.

Since coming to Radford University, Mr. Jelincic has staged, with Dagmar Kessler (his wife), all of the ballet programs.

Frano Jelincic Remembered for His Work

Frano Jelincic, professor emeritus of dance, passed away unexpectedly Thursday, October 13, 2005. He had retired in May of this year after 27 years of service to RU. His wife Dagmar, also a former dance department faculty member, joined him in retirement.

Jelincic came to RU in 1979 after a distinguished career as dancer, ballet master and company director in the professional ballet world. “His contributions to the department of dance and the university define the essence of teaching and artistic excellence,” said dance department chair Margaret Devaney.

“Our dance program enjoys an outstanding reputation regionally and nation wide in large part due to his superior ballet training and productions. Starting with very little, he was bound and determined to establish the RU dance program as one of the few university programs in the country that provided undergraduate students both professional-level instruction and opportunities to perform in authentic full-length classical works,” Devaney said.

To honor his memory, the dance department production “An Evening of Ballet” was dedicated to the Jelincic family. It was the RU debut of Inessa Plekhanova, the new director of ballet who joined the faculty this fall. Jelincic and his wife interviewed Plekhanova for the job.

Plekhanova said, “I feel it is an honor to be a part of this dance program and I feel that he has passed his work on to me.”

To provide seed for an ongoing permanent memorial, Jelincic’s family has contributed a leadership gift through the RU Foundation to establish a dance scholarship in his name. To learn more or to add your contribution to this scholarship fund in Jelincic’s memory, call (540) 831- 5108 or visit the RU Arts Society.