I have read that Robert Helpmann was given Margo Fonteyn as a new partner and that Plisetskaya chose Godunov as her partner. I was wondering about the beginnings of other famous partnerships. For example with Maximova and Vasiliev -- was their partnership already developing when they were children , as they had been in class together from a very young age?

An interesting question.

As far as I know, Vasiliev and Maximova partnered each other at school already and married just after their graduation. So that was one partnership with very early beginnings!

Has there ever been a "great partnership" where the dancers do not have an emotional affinity for each other?

Many. Mme. Alonso had one of the most famous partnerships in the ballet history with Igor Youskevitch-(to the point where people thought they were romantically involved)...while hardly ever danced with her own husband, dancer Alberto Alonso!

Do you know if she chose him to be her partner?

Do ballerinas have more say in who their partner is than the other way around?

By many accounts, the answer is yes. According to Mme. he was one of her few partners able to deal with her blindness because of the fact that he wouldn't be one inch out of the place where he was supposed to, let's say, catch her in a flying fish dive...She always insists that he was a one beyond extraordinary partner.