Ballet Without Music

Photo Credit: Anna Pavlova with Hubert Stowitts in La Peri, Buenos Aires, 1919 from Anna Pavlova Her Life And Art by Keith Money

Anna Pavlova was a visionary who thought outside the box. She was a risk-taker too, which usually brought excellent results for her and her company, but her unconventional thoughts or ideas didn't always match the views and opinions of some of her peers in her time. One idea she had she even thought some would find too strange or radical, but she wanted to try this experiment one day, and that was to have a ballet be done without music. She talked about this idea in an interview with the press mentioned here.

"No doubt should I or somebody else decide upon presenting a ballet without the musical accompaniment the idea would be greeted with derision. But it would be an interesting experiment, making every man and woman his or her own composer, and if the dancers possessed the necessary talent it would be well worth while. I am planning to try the experiment of a ballet without music some day. Of course it would have to be before an invited audience, for the innovation would be too radical to attract the masses; besides I do not believe anybody would be willing to pay for a performance of that kind." - Quote from Anna Pavlova 

This quote shows Pavlova was before her time. She was so forward-thinking. She said if they do ballet without music, and with a smaller group of people since the large crowds that came to ballet regularly would find a ballet without music too extreme.

It's interesting because of the pandemic the performing arts had to find a new way to reach their audiences and keep the arts alive. That new way was through streaming on social media platforms for a global virtual audience because in-person wasn't allowed given safety circumstances because of the pandemic. There was though still music for the performances just not a live audience with applause, so in a strange way her experiment happened but in a different way.

I think given how Pavlova felt, she would have been very intrigued by this new way of ballet and how she could reach so many people across the globe with her message of love and joy for ballet without even leaving her home and getting on a ship. I believe she would have embraced this new outlet for ballet without a doubt.