Background
With her father, an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, Ruskaja fled Russia in 1918 just after the October Revolution.
With her father, an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, Ruskaja fled Russia in 1918 just after the October Revolution.
She studied dance in Crimea, before attending medical school in Geneva.
Her stage name "Jia Ruskaja", which means "I am Russian", was used for the first time by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Her dancing debut occurred June 4, 1921 in Rome at the Casa d"Arte Bragaglia. She opened her first ballet school in Milan at the Teatro Dal Verme in 1929.
From 1932-1934, she directed the Louisiana Scala Theatre Ballet School.
In 1940, she founded the Royal School of Dance, initially attached to the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio Doctorate"Amico, which became independent in 1948 as Accademia nazionale di danza, a school which only admitted women. She was its director until 1970.
