Visiting Bermuda for a joint celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) and 25 years for the Somerset School of Dancing, is Madame Irina Baronova.

One of the greatest ballerinas of this century, Russian-born Mme. Baronova, is the Vice President of the internationally recognised Academy.

She will be the guest of honour at the Somerset School's Gala Performance which takes place at City Hall on Saturday evening.

It is hoped that as many of Bermuda's teachers, students and dance lovers in general will be on hand to welcome this former dancer whose name is legendary in ballet circles. There will be a reception afterwards in her honour.

The Somerset School of Dancing, which teaches the RAD method of ballet, will present about 70 of their students in a special performance for Mme. Baronova, after which she has agreed to give an address to the audience an students.

Irina Baronova, has led what might be termed a `colourful' life. At 76 (and looking not a day over 50), she is currently busy writing her memoirs which may well begin with the story of her family's escape from the horrors of the Russian Revolution. Her father, in peril from the Bolsheviks as he was a Navy officer, walked all the way from Russia to Romania with the one-year old Irina in his arms.

She became one of the stars of Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, and became a household name when she, Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchisnka, were dubbed by dance writer Arnold Haskell as the `Three Baby Ballerinas'.

Baronva danced her first `Spectre de la Rose' at the age of 13 with Serge Lifar, and performed her first `Swan Lake' with the late Sir Anton Dolin at London's Alhambra Theatre when she was only 14. During World War II she became prima ballerina with American Ballet Theatre.

Renowned as one of the world's great teachers, she still gives master classes and mime classes for the RAD and leading dance companies, as well as she travelling all over the world as an examiner and representative of the RAD.

The Gala Dance Demonstration takes place on Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 or $30 for those wishing to attend the reception. They can be reserved by telephoning 234-2164 or 292-0446, or at the door.