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FEATURES
Words
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Who Are We?
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What Children Say
Addicted to Dance
A League of His Own
60 and Still Counting
Dance, But What Kind?
When Did It All Change?
The Nutcracker Mystique
Ballet and the Evil Empire
Ballet As Track and Field
The Best of the Androisms
The Names Have Changed
Over 80 and Still Teaching
What Do You Really Know?
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
TECHNIQUE
A Book You Should Own
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SITE INFO
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BIOGRAPHIES
Alicia Alonso
Yelena Andreianova
Dick Andros
Dee Andros
Plato Andros
Helene Antonova
Jean Aumer
George Balanchine
Jean Balon
Irina Baronova
Pierre Beauchamp
Carlo Blasis
Nicole Blondy
Adolph Bolm
Ruthanna Boris
Anatole Bourman
Antoine Bournonville
Marie Camargo
Edward Caton
Enrico Cecchetti
Fanny Cerrito
Jean Coralli
The Coulon Family
Margaret Craske
Leon Danielian
Alexandra Danilova
Jean Dauberval
Catherine de Medici
Ninette De Valois
Sergei Denham
Sergei Diaghilev
Charles Louis Didelot
Vladimir Dokoudovsky
Anton Dolin
Felia Doubrovska
Louis Dupre
Nicholas Efimov
Andre Eglevsky
Lubov Egorova
Fanny Elssler
Sophie Fedorova
Mikhail Fokine
Franklin Frederic
The Gardel Brothers
Yekaterina Geltzer
Tamara Geva
Nana Gollner
Alexander Gorsky
Lucile Grahn
Cynthia Gregory
Serge Grigoriev
Carlotta Grisi
Marie Madeleine Guimard
Melissa Hayden
Sol Hurok
Marie Jeanne
Christian Johansson
Louis Johnson
Vera Karalli
Maria Karnilova
Tamara Karsavina
Nora Kaye
Michael Kidd
Nathalie Krassovska
John Kriza
Mathilde Kschessinska
Charles le Picq
Nicolai Legat
Pierina Legnani
Giovanni Lepri
David Lichine
Serge Lifar
Robert Lindgren
Catherine Littlefield
Emma Livry
Jean Baptiste Lully
Nicholas Magallanes
Alicia Markova
Leonide Massine
Augusta Maywood
Mikhail Mordkin
Mary Ellen Moylan
Vera Nemtchinova
Bronislava Nijinska
Vaslav Nijinsky
Jean Georges Noverre
Laurent Novikoff
Anatole Obouhkoff
Nicholas Orloff
Sono Osato
Ruth Page
Robert Pagent
Anna Pavlova
Louis Pecourt
Jules Perrot
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Paul Petroff
Olga Preobrajenska
Francoise Prevost
Marie Rambert
Pierre Rameau
Janet Reed
Tatiana Riabouchinska
Jerome Robbins
Carolina Rosati
Ida Rubinstein
Marie Salle
Ludmila Schollar
Mia Slavenska
Vivian Smith
Lydia Sokolova
Olga Spessivtseva
Marie Theresa Subligny
The Taglioni Family
Maria Tallchief
Glen Tetley
Tamara Toumanova
Vera Trefilova
Anthony Tudor
Sonja Tyven
Galina Ulanova
The Vestris Family
Salvatore Vigano
Pierre Vladimorov
Alexandre Volinine
Patricia Wilde
Raven Wilkinson
Leon Woizikowski
Sonia Wojcikowska
Igor Youskevitch
Virginia Zucci
Nicholas Zverev
Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (1885-1978)
Tamara
Karsavina, one of the greatest dancers of the Ballets Russes
of Serge Diaghilev was born in St. Petersburg on March 10, 1885,
the daughter of dancer Platon Karsavin. Tamara became a legend
in her own life time. Her technical perfection, wit, rare intelligence,
and deep feeling made her a prima ballerina for all times.
Karsavina graduated from St. Petersburg's Imperial Ballet School in 1902 and immediately entered the Maryinsky Ballet as a soloist. From 1909 to 1918 she was given starring roles with the rank of Ballerina. She was a ballerina with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes from its beginnings in 1909.
Karsavina divided her time between the Maryinsky Theatre and the Diaghilev Ballets Russes. She was a frequent partner of Vaslav Nijinsky, and we associate their partnership with many well known ballets, such as Mikhail Fokine's Le Spectre de la Rose.
Karsavina championed Mikhail Fokine's ideas of expressive dance. She danced in his Les Sylphides, 1909, Carnaval and The Firebird 1910, and Le Spectre de la Rose and Petrushka, 1911. Her performance as the doll in Petrushka has been considered the definitive interpretation.
During World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution she continued to dance in Russia. After her marriage, to a British diplomat Henry J. Bruce, she and her husband fled to London in 1919. Karsavina returned to Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1919 to star in Leonide Massine's Le Tricorne, and in 1926 she returned to dance in Bronislava Nijinska's and George Balanchine's Romeo and Juliet. During the early 1930s she gave guest performances with BALLET RAMBERT (founded by Dame Marie Rambert).
Tamara Karsavina was associated for many years with Great Britains' Royal Academy of Dancing, from the time it received its charter in 1936.
Margot Fonteyn and other ballerinas were coached by Karsavina in many of the classical roles that she had created for the Diaghilev Ballets Russes.
She died in London May 26, 1978 at the age of 93.
(First published January 1995)
When I start teaching you like a dilettante, it will be time for you to find another teacher.