In memoriam: Veseljko SulićBallet — 03. April 2023.
On March 22, 2023, the great Croatian ballet artist died in Rio de Janeiro. He was born in Pučišće on the island of Brač, Croatia in 1929.
After WWII, in 1947 he took ballet classes at the famous ballet school of Ana Roje and Oskar Harmoš and was accepted into the corps de ballet of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb the following year. In 1952, he received a scholarship for London with Audrey de Voss, and he danced in troupes of John Cranko, Kenneth Macmillan and others. Already the following year, Sulić joined the company of Janine Charrat in Paris where he remained for full 11 years.
At first, he appeared in smaller roles but already in 1956, he became Danseur Etoile in troupe Ballet des Etoiles de Paris. He toured Europe with the most renowned dancers of the time: Ludmilla Tcherina, Zizi Jeanmaire, Colette Marchand and appeared in movies in France and Germany; with Geraldine Chaplin he shot a movie for the French television and in 1960 he became the leading dancer in Lido de Paris.
He commenced his choreographic career with ballet Suite Lyrique in Paris, then soon after with Jean Cocteau he created King Oedipus in Lyon. In 1964 he appeared for several months at the Broadway Theatre in New York, where he took classes in the school of Martha Graham and when he was offered a three-month contract for the Tropicana in Las Vegas, he stayed for the next nine years.
Along his dancing career, Sulić taught classical ballet at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and held seminars all throughout the States for the Professional Dance Teachers Association, Dance Masters of America and Dance Caravan. In 1972 he founded the Nevada Dance Theatre that out of a group of several ballet fans developed into a professional company of national significance for which he created 51 ballets and which is now called Nevada Ballet Theatre. Sulić also choreographed in operas all over Europe and North and South America. From 1997 he worked in Rio de Janeiro with Teatro Municipal where he created ballets Mantodea and Paradise garden, and for company Jovem Greek songs. Since then, the national ballet school regularly performs La Barre as part of the final concert. At the 51st Split Summer Festival, the Ballet of the Croatian National theatre Split performed his The Best of Veseljko Sulić, a retrospective evening of his 60th artistic anniversary. In 1998, he created performance King Oedipus (Veseljko Sulić- Philipp Glass- Jean Cocteau) as a co-production between the CNT in Zagreb and the Dubrovnik Summer Festival.
In 1981 as a prominent artist, he received the Nevada Governor's Arts Award. The University in Las Vegas at which he founded the Department of dance and at which he taught classical ballet for more than two decades in 1987 granted him the Distinguished Nevadan Award. In 1997 he received the Community Art Award, and in 1999 he entered the Legends Hall of Fame for his establishment of the Nevada Dance Theatre. The democrat leader in the US Senate Harry Reid granted Sulić the senator's award and entered his name in the Archives of the US Congress as a meritorious artist who brought classical art to Las Vegas, Nevada. According to his own words, he was in love with ballet and promoted this art his entire life.
The Croatian National Theatre bids farewell to this artist with great sadness who indebted generations of dancers from Europe to the States and Canada and all the way to South America.
