Anna Pavlova
POSTED ON19.03.2021
She saw “The Sleeping Beauty” and decided that she was destined to become a ballerina.

Anna Pavlova, one of the most famous Russian dancers, was born in St Petersburg in 1881.

Now life looks like a dream, but she worked hard to get it all. At the ballet school, due to her extreme thinness, arched feet, thin ankles, and long limbs she was nicknamed “The Broom”. She had to work harder than anyone and even had to take extra lessons to keep up.

Nevertheless, when she graduated from the Theatre School (now the Vaganova Academy), she joined the Mariinsky Theatre as a coryphée, skipping corps de ballet. At the age of 25, she became a principal dancer of the Theatre and got thousands of fans.

In 1914, she left Russia forever and settled in London. Nevertheless, she went on going on tour around the world. She went to Europe, Northern and South America, Japan, China, India, Australia and New Zealand. It seems that in the 1920s, everyone in the world learnt her name and fell in love with ballet.

Her signature role on tour was “The Dying Swan”: they say she performed it around 4000 times. Anna Pavlova died at the age of 49. Her last words were: “Get my swan costume ready”.

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