The amazing thing about Robert Watkins and deVeaux Riddick is (fill in your own favorite story). The two have done so much, for so long, in Richmond that it’s nearly impossible to try to sum them up succinctly in a neat little anecdote. The founders of two local ballet companies, impresarios and stars of hundreds of stage productions, the creative force behind society balls and home decorators of first note, they’ve long had a grand presence in Richmond. They have covered it all.

One hundred years ago, legendary Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev changed the course of dance history with the founding of the Ballets Russes.  The Russian company, which never actually performed in Russia, opened in Paris in 1909 with a revolutionary aesthetic that redefined ballet for the 20th century. Reinventing an art form that had grown stale elsewhere, the company incorporated new choreography, new music and new stars.