What Dancing Meant to Anna Pavlova

Photo Credit: Anna Pavlova in Valse Caprice costume, London, c. 1911 from Anna Pavlova Her Life And Art by Keith Money

 Anna Pavlova was with the reporter for the Daily Mail for an interview. They accompanied her on her shopping trip, which was soon interrupted by spectators realizing who she was. Anna Pavlova had the reporter make a run for it with her up the stairs to a restaurant to have tea. The reporter remarks how he was out of breath, but Anna Pavlova wasn't even out of breath and made it look easy.

"Sometimes we cannot wait for the lift," She said. "These tables are taken so quickly. Let us sit behind a big tree with our backs to everyone." Quote from Anna Pavlova with Daily Mail 1911

This quote demonstrated how spontaneous and free-spirited Anna Pavlova was and how she was ready for anything life would throw at her.

The reporter notes that Anna Pavlova's wish was to conquer London with her dancing, and since that came true, her new mission was to tour the provinces and bring ballet there and win them over with her dancing just like she did with London.

"You know what my dancing is to me," ("Oh, do let me do the tea!") "But no one in England can know how we work at the Imperial Conservatoire in St. Petersburg. Oh, to do anything above the ordinary requires infinite patience and such hard work. I was nine at the time of my admission to the institution. For eight years the pupils are not allowed outside the walls of the buildings except during the summer holidays, and the course of studies we have to go through is as comprehensive as it can be. Yet, in spite of the hard work, I am sure there is not one pupil who regrets having gone through the apprenticeship. As soon as the students show the necessary talent for music, acting and dancing. It had always been the rule that no one could be made a ballerina until she had been a soloist for seven years and I regard it as a very great distinction that I was appointed after four years . But all the training is good and dancing is a fine art." - Quote from Anna Pavlova with Daily Mail 1911

Here Anna Pavlova revealed what it was like being a student at the Imperial Conservatoire and what was demanded of the students there to succeed in the school and what it took to become a ballerina. 

"After these years of probation the dancer must strike her own line. It is then, and only then, that individuality should assert itself. For my own part , I thought the old conventional ballet could be modernized to a very great extent, and made to interpret the human emotions almost as effectively as music, painting, or any other art. It was then I attempted to render by rhythmic poses, and gestures such pieces as Rubinstein's waltzes, or fragments from the work of Delibes, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, and other comparatively modern composers." - Quote from Anna Pavlova with Daily Mail 1911

Here Anna Pavlova shows how she thinks outside of the box by seeing ballet to different music and more modern composers. She talks about how she is experimenting with the poses and gestures from the waltz dance being put into ballet. Pavlova also saw ballet modernized could show the feelings and human emotions to the audience just like someone feels emotions through listening to music or looking at a painting, or watching actors perform in a play. She saw the future of dance, and dance was part of her being. Without dance, Pavlova wasn't present or alive. Dance, she believed, was her reason for living, and her mission during her lifetime was to introduce the world to ballet which she completed her task. Ballet and her name Anna Pavlova was known and loved around the globe.

Photo Credit: Anna Pavlova as Kitri from Don Quixote Ballet from Anna Pavlova Her Life And Art By Keith Money