Helen's Blog /

Even though the vintage reels shown of Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova spooled three weeks ago in Pordenone, the aura of the dancer, her interminable legs, her precision on tip-toe and her incredible grace and femininity tinged with mystery, linger in the minds of all festival-goers who viewed them.

According to the Giornate Diector David Robinson, in 1924 Pavlova (1881-1931) visited the Fairbanks studios, where The Thief of Bagdad was in production, and was filmed on the set in 7 short dances (not 6 as is stated on the original title, which may have been intended for a shortened version of the film). It seems unlikely that this was just an improvisational filming session: the dancer changed costumes for each of the numbers. Beautifully shot, these represent the finest record of the legendary dancer, who, alongside Nijinsky and Karsavina, astounded Paris in the first Ballets Russes season.

In 1954, with the support of the then National Film Archive, the ballet historian and sometime director of the Royal Academy of Dancing, Peter Brinson (1923-1995), and the composer and conductor Leighton Lucas (1903-1982) set out to recreate the original musical accompaniment for these dances. They were only able to accomplish this with the help of a number of still-surviving former Pavlova collaborators: today it would be impossible to match the dance and music – played by the pianist Viola Tucker (1921-2005) – as impeccably as on this historic track. There are no recorded music tracks for "Oriental Dance" and "Columbine": at the Giornate performance they will be accompanied live by John Sweeney.

Her life was as colourful as her performances.

Born the illegitimate daughter of a laundry-woman,hr father was probably a young Jewish soldier and businessman. When she saw The Sleeping Beauty performed, Anna Pavlova decided to become a dancer, and entered the Imperial Ballet School at ten. She worked very hard there, and on graduation began to perform at the Maryinsky Theatre, debuting i 1899.

In 1907, Anna Pavlova began her first tour, to Moscow, and by 1910 was appearing at the Metropolitan Opera House in America. When, in 1914, she was traveling through Germany on her way to England when Germany declared war on Russia, her connection to Russia was for all intents broken.

For the rest of her life, Anna Pavlova toured the world with her own company and kept a home in London, where her exotic pets were constant company when she was there. Victor Dandré, her manager, was also her companion, and may have been her husband (she deliberately clouded this issue).

While her contemporary, Isadora Duncan, introduced revolutionary innovations to dance, Anna Pavlova remained largely committed to the classic style. She was known for her daintiness, frailness, lightness and both wittiness and pathos.

Her last world tour was in 1928-29 and her last performance in England in 1930. Anna Pavlova appeared in a few silent films: one, The Immortal Swan, she shot in 1924 but it was not shown until after her death -- it originally toured theaters in 1935-1936 and then released in 1956.

Anna Pavlova died of pleurisy in the Netherlands in 1931.