- He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1950 King's Honours List for his services to dance. He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 1962 Queen's Honours List for his services to dance. He was awarded the Companion of Honour in the 1970 Queen's Honours List for his services to dance. He was awarded the Order of Merit in October 1977 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to dance.
- He was awarded the Legion of Honour in France in 1962 for his services to dance.
- He was awarded the Commander of the Order of Dannebrog in 1963 by the Danish government for his services to dance.
- He was a British ballet dancer and choreographer and also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue.
- After his retirement, Ashton made several short ballets as pièces d'occasion, but his only longer works were the cinema film, The Tales of Beatrix Potter made in 1970 and released in 1971, and A Month in the Country (1976), a one-act piece, lasting about forty minutes, freely adapted from Turgenev's comedy of manners. The piece has been revived regularly, in every decade since the premiere.
- As the 1930s progressed, Ashton's career began to extend internationally. In 1934 he choreographed Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints in Three Acts in New York, and in 1939 he created his first ballet for a foreign company: Devil's Holiday (Le Diable s'amuse) for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.[.
- In 1926 Rambert encouraged him to try his hand at choreography, and though he continued to dance professionally, with success, it was as a choreographer that he became famous.
- Determined to be a dancer despite the opposition of his conventional middle-class family, Ashton was accepted as a pupil by Léonide Massine and then by Marie Rambert.
- Ashton was chief choreographer to Ninette de Valois, from 1935 until her retirement in 1963, in the company known successively as the Vic-Wells Ballet, the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Royal Ballet. He succeeded de Valois as director of the company, serving until his own retirement in 1970.
- Ashton is widely credited with the creation of a specifically English genre of ballet. Among his best-known works are Façade (1931), Symphonic Variations (1946), Cinderella (1948), La fille mal gardée (1960), Monotones I and II (1965), Enigma Variations (1968) and the feature film ballet The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1970).
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