Tamara Karsavina Rehearsing Margot Fonteyn

Rehearsing 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

Rehearsing 'Le Spectre de la Rose'

Rehearsing 'The Firebird'

Rehearsing 'The Firebird'

I particularly love the first image - which gives the tiniest sense of Karsavina's performance in the role.

Film of Diaghilev Ballet Russe Ballerina Absoluta At Home

Tamara Karsavina arranging things in a doll's house in the garden at home in England (1920s)

A couple of days ago I came across some footage of the great Mariinsky (now Kirov) Theatre and Serge de Diaghilev Ballet Russe prima ballerina, Tamara Karsavina ...

In 'L'Oiseau de feu' / 'Firebird' (1910)

In 'Giselle' with Vaslav Nijinsky (1910)

With Vaslav Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose' (1911)


With Vaslav Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose' (1911)


With Vaslav Nijnsky in 'Le Spectre de la Rose' (1911)

In 'Les Papillons' (1912)

In 'Les Papillons' (1912)

With Serge Lifar in 'Romeo et Juilette' (1926)

Tamara Karsavina c1960 teaching the ballerina role in 'Le Spectre de la Rose' (1911) to Margot Fonteyn

... doing a variety of ordinary and less ordinary things at home in England in the 1920s, such as arranging things in a doll's house ...



... choosing some material to be made into a dress ...


... reading a letter in her study ...


... exercising and dancing in the garden ...




... and leaving the house for a performance at the Coliseum Theatre in London ...


... turning to take a coat from a maid ...


... as a cat scurries past!

The footage of Tamara Karsavina in these mostly every day activities seems to make her more real and less like simply the great and remote legend of the photographs, memoirs, histories and biographies of the Ballet Russe era.

Tamara Karsavina - More of the c1920 Kirov Class - the Battements and Jettes!

Some more of the footage of Karsavina's c1920 class at the Kirov Theatre.






The battements ...



and the jetes



Hope some more turns up!

Tamara Karsavina Exercises at the Mariinsky Theatre c1920

Finally I managed to locate the footage of Tamara Karsavina doing exercises at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersberg c1920.

Karsavina in 'Les Papillions'

Karsavina in 'Cleopatre'

Karsavina in 'Firebird'

There is so little film of any of the dancers from the Serge Diaghilev era of the 'Ballets Russes'.

Just fragments of footage of Anna Pavlova, Olga Spessitzseva, Anton Dolin, Alicia Markova, Alexand Alexandra Danilova and a tiny handful of others.