Anna Pavlova….The Dying Swan

Anna Pavlovna was born in 23 January 1931,she was a famous Russian ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th century.Pavlova is a legend largely remembered for her famous dance The Dying Swan and because she was the first ballerina to travel around the world and bring ballet to people who had never seen it.When she was 8, her mother took her to a performance of “The Sleeping Beauty,” and Anna experienced an epiphany ,a baptism by ballet.Pavlova’s years at the Imperial Ballet School were difficult. Ballet technique did not come easily to the young Pavlova. Her extremely arched feet, thin ankles, and long limbs clashed with the small, compact body which was at that time in favor for the ballerina.Her most famous showpiece was “The Dying Swan”, choreographed for her by Michel Fokine in 1905, danced to The Swan from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.it became her personal emblem. In fact, a woman imitating a swan is an absurd idea. The body parts don’t match, and the bird is graceful only when swimming. A swan’s foot is a webbed black affair that the bird can shake out like an old dishrag before folding it neatly under a wing. Pavlova en pointe and in motion had no duckish quality whatsoever. “The Dying Swan” is not about a woman impersonating a bird, it’s about the fragility of life – all life – and the passion with which we hold on to it. Pavlova’s sheer dramatic intensity forcibly conveyed this truth to the audience, and the work was an instant success.

Anna Pavlova continues to dance for us through her photographs: they evoke a moment in flight, and our imagination recreates the rest. We can only glimpse the exquisite whole – her entrances and exits and the cascading flowers that fell to her feet during the bows.

The Dying Swan