C.C. Chicago

Anna Pavlova was the most celebrated ballerina of her time. the legendary prima ballerina was born near St. Petersburg, Russia on February 12, 1881 during the cold whiteness of a Russian-Jewish background. Her real father was a wealthy businessman, named Lazar Polyakov. Her mother, named Mathwey (Mathew) Pavlov, was a retired soldier, who died when she was only two years old. Although she was registered under the name of Pavlova, her father Lazar Polyakov took good care of young Anna Pavlova and also paid for her tuition at the Imperial Ballet Schhol in St. Petersburgh.

When she was 8, her mother took her to a performance of “The Sleeping Beauty,” and Anna experience epiphany- a baptism by ballet. This and only this was what she wanted to do with her life. At the age of 10 she was admitted to the Imperial School of Ballet by Marius Petipa. Her exceptional gifts were immediately visible, and after graduating, at 18, she made her company debut on September 19, 1899 in a pas de trois in “La Fille Mal gardee,” and worked with the Mariinsky Ballet from 1899-1907. Anna never danced in the corps de ballet. She shared the role of Gizelle with “Matilda Kshesinskaya’. Her partner and choreogrpher was Mikhail Fokin. He choreographed Pavlova’s best known showpiece “The Dying Swan” on the music of Camille Saint-Saens. In 1908 Sergei Diaghilev hired Pavlova and Mikhail Fokin for his “Ballets Russes” (Russian Seasons) in Paris and London

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Ballet is a formalized form of dance originated in the Renaissance court as an outgrowth of court pageantry in Italy, where aristocratic weddings were lavish celebrations. It further developed in France and Russia as a court dance form. Ballet was shaped by the French ballet de cour, which consisted of social dances performed by the nobility in tandem with music, speech verse, cong, pageant, decor and costume. When Catherine de medici, an Italian aristocrat with an interest in the arts, married the French crown heir Henry II, she brought her enthusiasm for dance to France and provided financial support.

Ballet is a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It has been influential as a form of dance globally and is taught in ballet schools around the world which use their own culture and society to modernize the art. Ballets are choreographed, and also include mime, acting, and are set to music, usually orchestral. it is best known in the form of classical ballet, notable for its techniques, such as point work, turn-out of the legs; its graceful, flowing, precise movements; and its ethereal. Later developments include neoclassical and contemporary ballet.

A ballet of the Renaissance was a far cry from the form of theatrical entertainment known to audiences today. Tutus, ballet slippers, and point work were not yet used. The choreography was adapted from court dance steps. performers dressed in fashions of the times. For women, they wear formal gowns that covered their legs to the ankle. Early ballet was participatory, with the audience joining the dance towards the end.

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