Ivy House Ballet Classes

 

Photo Credit: Pavlova Portrait of a Dancer Presented by Margot Fonteyn
Three of Anna Pavlova's Ballet Students at the Ivy House. Muriel Stuart who later join Pavlova's Company is in the center.

The Ivy House was more than a home and retreat for Anna Pavlova. It also was a place of learning where it held Ballet classes for children that Anna Pavlova taught herself. Anna Pavlova had taught children at a ballet school in the Hippodrome in New York in America, so she had previous teaching experience with children. 

When the children danced, Anna Pavlova saw they were always dancing freely and with their hearts, and this filled Pavlova with joy. Anna Pavlova decided that she would teach her free ballet classes which was a small group of girls at her home.

Pavlova saw spirit and talent in the children and wanted to see them thrive and grow into dancers. Individuality was vital to Pavlova. She didn't like the young girls to become a carbon copy of herself; instead, she wanted each of them to find their voice in dance and express themselves how they felt individuality.  Her lesson was they would be seen for their style of dance and not hers. She was just there to teach and guide them on the right path of dance.

 One particular student of Pavlova's was Muriel Stuart, who was so talented at dancing she joined Pavlova's company. Muriel Stuart would later study modern dance with Martha Graham, Harald Kreutzberg, and Agnes de Mille. Like Anna Pavlova, who trained her as a dancer when she was young, she would have a dancing career. Later Stuart became a teacher of the School of American Ballet and taught there for many years, inspiring dancers just as she was as a young girl by Anna Pavlova.

The Ivy House is now a Private School for Girls called St. Anthony's and has ballet classes for girls just like Anna Pavlova did at her school. Anna Pavlova is even remembered at the school with a quote from her in the school's ballet studio. Anna Pavlova's spirit for dance and learning is still felt and embraced by the young dancers who dance in the ballet studio today, which was once a famous Ballerina's home where she inspired and taught future ballerinas. 

"It is simply wonderful how they grasped my ideas, dancing absolutely as if they were grown-up artists. I never let the children do anything without making them understand while they are doing it. My idea is not that they should show the technique they possess, but that they should use this technique as a means of expression. No one must see technique: it must be the servant, not the master." -Quote from Anna Pavlova about her students at the Ivy House.