subject: How Tamara Karsavina Influenced Ballet Dancing [print this page] How Tamara Karsavina Influenced Ballet Dancing
She was lucky enough to study ballet dancing under famous teachers Paul Gerdt and Enrico Cecchetti at the famous Imperial School. After graduating, she became principal ballerina with the Imperial Russian Ballet and danced the entire Marius Petipa repertory. Her most famous roles were Lise in La Fille Mal Gardee, Medora in Le Corsiare and the Tsar Maiden in The Little Humpbacked Horse. She was also the first ballerina to dance the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux in 1915.
She started dancing with Ballet Russes late in 1910 and then she joined up with Diaghilev's company, where she created major roles in the Firebird (which Anna Pavlova turned down), Petrouchka, Spectre de la Rose among others. She made up a legendary partnership with Nijinski. She and Anna Pavlova were known to have a bit of rivalry between them, and in one performance the shoulder strap of her costume came loose exposing her. Pavlova reduced an embarrassed Tamara to tears.
Tamara Karsavina was renowned for her beauty, and many artists used her in their portraits.
In 1917 she settled in London and married diplomat Henry James Bruce. She was one of the founders of the Operatic Association which later became known as the Royal Academy of Dance. The Royal Academy of Dance is now the worlds largest examining and teaching organisation. She was vice president of the association for over thirty years.
She taught ballet dancing and wrote a lot about the world of ballet including a publication called Theatre Street.
Amongst her pupils, she taught two famous ballerinas absoluta, Dame Alicia Markova, who was the first British dancer to hold the rank of Prima Ballerina, and Dame Margot Fonteyn. She also taught Mari Bicknell, who was founder of Cambridge Ballet Workshop.
Tamara Karsavina became recognised as one of the founders of modern British Ballet. She also assisted in the establishment of The Royal Ballet.
Even as she aged, Tamara Karsavina could still reduce a crowded room to admiring silence merely by the manner in which she made her entrances. She was greatly under-used and neglected by the management of the Royal Ballet and only occasionally assisted with the revivals of the ballets in which she danced. She coached Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in Spectre de la Rose and in 1959 advised Sir Frederick Ashton when he did the revival of La Fille Mal Gardee. She taught him the original mimed dialogue for the famous when I am married scene.
Tamara Karsavina died on the 26th of May 1978.
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