Tamara Karsavina

Tamara Karsavina Platonowna (Russian Тамара Платоновна Карсавина, scientific transliteration Tamara Karsavina Platonovna; * 25 Februarjul / March 9 1885greg in Saint Petersburg, .. † May 26, 1978 in Beaconsfield, England) was a Russian ballet dancer and dance teacher.

Karsavina was born in Saint Petersburg, the daughter of the dancer Platon Karsavin. She was trained at the Imperial Ballet School, now the Vaganova Academy of Saint Petersburg and was after her graduation solo dancer in the Mariinsky Theatre. Her most famous interpretations were Lise in La Fille mal gardée, Medora in Le Corsaire and the Tsar 's daughter in The Little Humpbacked Horse. She was the first ballerina who danced the grand pas de deux from Le Corsaire.

In 1909, Karsavina member of the Ballets Russes. Their choreographer Michel Fokine choreographed for them their most famous roles, including the Ballerina in Petrouchka, the girl in Le Spectre de la Rose and the title role in The Firebird.

After the October Revolution she left in 1918 along with her husband, the diplomat Henry James Bruce and their son Russia and moved to London. There, she taught at the Royal Ballet School and the Royal Ballet Ballet dancing and repertoire. Their most famous pupils were prima ballerinas Alicia Markova later and Margot Fonteyn. Karsavina assisted the Royal Ballet at the recovery of the choreography of Marius Petipa and Michel Fokine.

Karsavina in 1920 co-founded the Royal Academy of Dance.

In her until 1947 memoirs, written " Theatre Street " she describes, among other things, the life of the middle class in Russia before and after the revolution, the training at the Imperial Ballet School and their encounters with Sergei Diaghilev, Pablo Picasso, Vaslav Nijinsky and Igor Stravinsky.