Pavlova, Film, Ballet

 


Photo Credit: Invitation to the Dance was one of the ballets, Pavlova filmed in Australia in 1929 from the Museum of London

Anna Pavlova was fascinated with the movie camera because she saw endless possibilities for the camera to be used in dance. She saw it as a device that could record her dancing and her company's dancers, but she also saw it as an educational device that people could learn ballet from the recording. Pavlova was the first ballerina who viewed the movie camera as an essential tool for dance. When Pavlova got her movie camera, she filmed ballet sequences and when her company's dancers danced. Some of these films still exist. She also liked to film daily life at her home, the Ivy House, and on company tours. She saw a whole new world with the movie camera. Today just as Pavlova said, a movie camera can teach people ballet. That is what has happened. There are now ballet classes taught online through video, which now reaches a much wider audience. Ballet performances are recorded and have a global audience because the videos can be streamed on platforms, creating educational content and entertainment for students of ballet and lovers of ballet. I believe in a way that Anna Pavlova was a pioneer for digital media for ballet. Without any doubt, I know she would embrace all the recording possibilities of today in the ballet world. I believe she was ahead of her time.

Photo Credit: California Poppy, one of the solos Pavlova had filmed from Becker & Maass.


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