| Nina Popova | |
| Birth Date: | 20 October 1922 |
| Birth Place: | Novorossiysk, Russian SFSR |
| Death Place: | St. Augustine, Florida, United States |
| Occupation: | Ballet dancer |
Nina Popova (October 20, 1922 – August 7, 2020)[1] was a Russian-born American ballet dancer.
Popova was born in Novorossiysk, Russia. Her family left for Paris shortly after her birth. She studied ballet with other Russian émigrés and, as a teenager, performed with Lyubov Yegorova's Ballet de la Jeunesse.[1] In the late 1930s she performed with the Original Ballet Russe in Australia and Cuba. In 1939, she joined the Ballet Theatre, now called the American Ballet Theatre, in New York.[1] Popova danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1943 to 1945.[2] She performed on the television program Your Show of Shows and on Broadway. From 1954 to 1967, Popova taught at New York's High School of Performing Arts.[1] From 1967 to 1975 she was the Artistic Director of the Houston Ballet, where she established a professional dance company.[3] [4]
Popova died from COVID-19 complications in St. Augustine, Florida, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida.[1]