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Photographic postcard of Anna Pavlova as Aspicia in the Petipa/Pugni The Pharaoh's Daughter, circa 1910

Anna Pavlovna Pavlova (31 January 1881 (Old Style)/12 February 1881 (New Style) – 23 January 1931) was a famous Russian ballet dancer of the early 20th century.

Pavlova was born in St. Petersburg, Russia two months premature. She later claimed her (possibly Jewish^[1]) father had died when she was two years old. She was rejected at the age of eight from the Imperial Ballet School because she was too small for her age and was asked to return when she reached her tenth year. At age ten, she entered the school, and in April 1891 danced in her very first performance as a cupid in Marius Petipa's A Fairy Tale. She trained under some of the greatest teachers of the day: Christian Johansson, Pavel Gerdt, Nikolai Legat, and the great Ballerina Ekaterina Vazem (creator of the role of Nikiya in La Bayadère), and graduated in 1899 at age 18, being allowed to enter the Imperial Ballet a rank ahead of corps de ballet as a coryphée. She rose through the ranks quickly, as she was a favorite of the old Maestro Petipa. She was second soloist in 1902, Première Danseuse in 1905, and finally Prima Ballerina in 1906 after a resounding performance in Giselle, for which Petipa revised the Ballerina's dances especially for her (they are still performed today in this version at the Mariinsky). Petipa would revise many Grand Pas for the Ballerina, as well as supplemental variations (among them, the famous variation to a solo harp danced by the lead Ballerina of the famous Paquita Grand Pas Classique, to the music of Riccardo Drigo, which Petipa choregraphed for the Ballerina's début in Paquita in 1904). She was much celebrated by the fanatical balletomanes of Tsarist St. Petersburg. Her legions of fans called themselves the Pavlovtzi.

In the 1890s, ballerinas of the old Imperial stage were expected to be strong technicians, and this usually meant a strong, muscular, compact body. When the Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Imperial Theatres Mathilde Kschessinskaya became pregnant in 1901, she coached Pavlova in the role of Nikya in La Bayadère. Kschessinskaya, not wanting to be upstaged, was certain Pavlova would fail miserably in the role, as she was considered technically inferior due to her small ankles and lithe legs. Instead audiences became enchanted with Pavlova and her frail, ethereal look, which fit the role perfectly, particularly in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades. Pavlova was thin and delicate-looking; she was considered perfect for romantic roles such as Giselle.

Her feet were extremely arched, so she strengthened her pointe shoe by adding a piece of hard leather on the soles for support and flattening the box of the shoe. At the time, many considered this "cheating", for a Ballerina of the era was taught that she, not her shoes, must hold her weight en pointe. In Pavlova's case this was extremely difficult, as the shape of her feet required her to balance her weight on her big toes. Her solution became, over time, the precursor of the modern pointe shoe,as pointe work became less painful and easier for curved feet. According to Margot Fonteyn's biography, Pavlova did not like the way her invention looked in photographs, so she would remove it or have the photographs altered so that it appeared she was using a normal pointe shoe. ^[2]

In the first years of the Ballets Russes Pavlova worked briefly for Serge Diaghilev. Originally she was to dance the lead in Mikhail Fokine's The Firebird, but refused the part, as she could not come to terms with Stravinsky's avant-garde score, and the role was given to Tamara Karsavina. All her life Pavlova perferred the melodious "Grand Ballet Musique Dansante" of the old Maestros such as Cesare Pugni and Ludwig Minkus, and cared little for anything else which strayed from the salon-styled ballet music of the 19th century.

By the mid 1900s she founded her own company and performed throughout the world, with a repertory consisting primarily of abridgements from the Imperial Petipa works, and specially choreographed pieces for herself. The ballet writer Cyril Beaumont described that "her bourées were like a string of pearls".

Her most famous showpiece was 'The Dying Swan, choreographed for her by Michel Fokine, danced to The Swan from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.

While touring in The Hague, Netherlands, Pavlova was in a train which malfunctioned and had a mild derailment. Dressed only in pajamas and a light scarf, she got out and walked the length of the train to see what happened. Three weeks later she was dead of pneumonia, three weeks short of her 50th birthday. Reportedly, she said "If I can't dance then I'd rather be dead," and asked to hold her costume from The Swan. Her last words were "Play that last measure very softly."

In accordance with old ballet tradition, on the day she was to have next performed, the show went on as scheduled, with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where she would have been. Memorial services were held in the Russian Orthodox church in London. Anna Pavlova was cremated, and her ashes placed in a columbarium at Golders Green Crematorium, where her urn was subsequently adorned with her ballet shoes. Her remains were finally moved in 2001 to the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow in accordance with her requests and after considerable controversy.^[3]

• The Pavlova dessert was named after her. Although its origins are disputed with both New Zealand and Australia claiming the credit, the actual earliest first entry of the recipe is found in New Zealand recipe books of the period, before those in Australia. Te Papa - New Zealand's new national museum in Wellington celebrated its first birthday in February 1999 with the creation of the world's largest Pavlova, named "Pavzilla", cut by New Zealand's Prime Minister of the time - the Hon. Jenny Shipley.

• Modern dancer Ruth St. Denis has said "Pavlova lived on the threshold of heaven and earth as an interpreter of the ways of God."^{[citation needed]}

• Anna Pavlova altered her point shoes to give her extra support. Modern day point shoes are modeled after the shoes that Anna Pavlova wore.

• In his poem, "His Phoenix," William Butler Yeats references Pavlova along with contemporary dancer Ruth St. Denis.

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Anna Pavlova

• Anna Pavlova in Australia – 1926, 1929 Tours - material held by the National Library of Australia
• Pictures of Anna Pavlova - digitised and held by the National Library of Australia
• Creative Quotations from Anna Pavlova
• Andros on Ballet
• Heroine Worship: Anna Pavlova, The Swan