SEATTLE (AP) — Ivan F. Novikoff, a Russian immigrant ballet master whose students included Robert Joffrey, died March 20 of pneumonia. He was 102.

Born in Kazan, Russia, Novikoff studied at the Imperial Ballet School along with Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova.

He fled from Russia after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, taught dance to the children of Russian soldiers in Harbin, China, and emigrated to the United States in 1923.

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Settling in Seattle, he founded the Novikoff School of Russian-American Ballet.

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