'Poetry of Motion, Sound and Colour': Anna Pavlova in New Zealand

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 42, 1 January 2009, Page 67

'Poetry of Motion, Sound and Colour': Anna Pavlova in New Zealand

IAN LOCHHEAD

The arrival of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in Auckland on 25 May 1926 is of major importance in the history of the performing arts in New Zealand. Although for most New Zealanders ballet was an unknown art form, Pavlova's name was sufficient to draw crowds to the Auckland wharf as the Maunganui berthed. When Pavlova stepped from the gangplank she was presented with bouquets by two small girls. Her cosmopolitan sophistication and elegance were evident to all. As the New Zealand Herald reported:

A crimson hat, framing an expressive mouth and eyes that flashed incessantly, a grey fur coat that only partially hid a becoming brick-red costume and a pair of shapely legs that told of the wonderful slimness of her figure, these were the things that found expression on everybody's tongue. 1

By the end of the interview that followed her arrival, Pavlova had charmed all those who had come to greet her. Speaking in heavily accented English, periodically switching to French or Russian, occasionally appealing to her husband, Victor Dandre, and resorting to gestures that were more expressive than words, she emphasised the depth and seriousness of her commitment to ballet. Before she had even set foot on a New Zealand stage the magnetism of Pavlova's personality and her theatrical style had begun to work its magic.

Pavlova was accompanied to New Zealand by a troupe of almost 50 dancers, an orchestra of 22 musicians, and conductor Lucien Wurmser. The company had already spent over two months in Australia, where extended seasons in Melbourne and Sydney had been outstanding successes. News of those performances had already reached New Zealand. On the day of Pavlova's arrival the Auckland Star reported:

Who thinks of ballet-dancing, thinks instinctively of Pavlova, 'the incomparable. ' She has long been the figure-head - one might say the living 'patron saint' - of that branch of art, and her name is used to express the height of perfection. 2

The opening performance of Pavlova's Auckland season was scheduled for the following night at His Majesty's Theatre, but on the evening of her arrival Pavlova appeared with members of the company at the Majestic Theatre. As she entered the vice-regal box the house gave her a rousing welcome, and later in the programme a film of her arrival in Auckland that morning was screened. Such scenes of enthusiastic reception were typical over the course of the next six weeks, as Pavlova danced from one end of the country to the other. Few performing artists have had a greater impact, or left New Zealand audiences with such indelible memories, as the great Russian dancer.

Pavlova was at the height of her fame in 1926, but her origins were humble. She was born in St Petersburg in 1881. Her mother, Lyubov Pavlova, was an impoverished laundress and the identity of her father is still open to debate. A performance of Marius Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty at the Maryinsky Theatre

in St Petersburg, which she attended with her mother, sparked her passion for dancing and, despite being rejected as a pupil at the Imperial Ballet School aged eight, she was admitted two years later, in 1891. There she received a matchless training, studying with some of the greatest teachers of the day, including Christian Johansson, Pavel Gerdt and Nikolai Legat. Graduating at the age of 18 in 1899, Pavlova immediately entered the Imperial Ballet.

She quickly rose through the ranks of the company, becoming a second soloist in 1902 and ballerina at the end of the 1905-6 season. A great favourite of Marius Petipa, she achieved particular success in Giselle, a part especially revised for her by the great choreographer in 1903. For a charity performance in 1907, Mikhail Fokine, the leading choreographer of the younger generation, choreographed The Swan for her. Performed to the music of Saint-Saens, this short solo became permanently associated with Pavlova's name, and she continued to perform it to the end of her career. 3

As one of the leading ballerinas of the Maryinsky Theatre, Pavlova was constantly photographed, drawn and painted. Valentin Serov's study of her in Fokine's ballet Les Sylphides showed Pavlova as the quintessential romantic ballerina. It was used for the poster advertising Serge Diaghilev's Saison Russe in Paris in May 1909, a season that has become a landmark in the history of twentieth-century ballet. 4 By this time Pavlova had been performing across Europe for two years, and her presence in Paris helped to ensure the success of that first Ballets Russes season. Pavlova was one of the greatest stars in a company that abounded with stars, among them Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina, but she danced for Diaghilev's company only once more after the initial Paris season. From then on Pavlova followed her own path, remaining largely independent from the artistic revolution led by Diaghilev and his associates. Pavlova's highly individual personality perhaps made her unwilling to submit to the tyranny of Diaghilev's vision in which all the arts of the theatre - music, painting, costume design, lighting (Diaghilev's own speciality) and dance - were combined to create a synthesis of a kind never seen before. 5

Diaghilev was a visionary who was always searching for new forms of expression; Pavlova was artistically conservative, content to perform a limited repertoire of traditional works comprising mainly one-act ballets and a selection of divertissements. Whereas Diaghilev's Ballets Russes transformed the art of dance in Western culture, raising it to a level of prestige rivalling that of opera, Pavlova's role in twentieth-century ballet was of a different kind. Having trained in the aristocratic environment of the Maryinsky Theatre she became, from 1910, ballet's greatest proselytiser, touring ceaselessly to every part of the world: 'Whatever the conditions, however primitive the theatre, however unsophisticated the public, Pavlova danced, and left an abiding memory.' 6 She performed for the last time in

St Petersburg in 1913, and after the outbreak of war in 1914 never returned to Russia. Although she treated London as her home, hers was essentially a nomadic life. By the time she reached New Zealand in May 1926, as part of an eight-month tour that included South Africa and Australia, she had been touring the world with her own company for 16 years.

Wherever there was an audience for ballet Pavlova danced, and her New Zealand performances had a lasting impact on those who saw her. Many were experiencing ballet for the first time; nevertheless, the consistently full houses were a clear indication that there was an audience for ballet in New Zealand. No ballet company had toured the country since Adeline Genee's pioneering visit in October and November of 1913, but following Pavlova's season de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and the Covent Garden Russian Ballet toured in 1937 and 1939 respectively. All such tours ceased with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, but after peace was restored in 1945 new companies toured, including Britain's Ballet Rambert in 1948 and Australia's Borovansky Ballet, which made repeated visits during the late 1940 s and 1950 s. 7

Pavlova's 1926 Australasian tour lasted five months, beginning in Melbourne on 13 March and ending in Adelaide on 4 August. The company performed in 12 different cities and towns, eight of them in New Zealand, where potential audiences were more scattered than in Australia. As a result, the New Zealand section of the tour was by far the most taxing. In Australia there were month-long seasons in Melbourne and Sydney, while the longest New Zealand season was 11 days, in Auckland from 26 May to 5 June. This was followed by performances in Wanganui (7 June), Hastings (8 June), Napier (9 and 10 June) and Palmerston North (11 June). The remainder of the tour was less pressured, with seasons from 12 to 19 June in Wellington, six nights in Christchurch from 21 June, a single performance in Timaru on 28 June, and a final five performances in Dunedin, ending on Saturday 3 July. 8 On the following Monday the company departed for Australia, and were back on stage in Brisbane seven days later.

In all they gave 38 performances in New Zealand in just 39 days. On the few days when there were no performances the company was travelling from one venue to another, often performing on the day they arrived. The company went by train, while Pavlova travelled everywhere in her own car. On arriving in Lyttelton after a rough ferry-crossing from Wellington, the company took the train to Christchurch while Pavlova waited for her car to be unloaded before driving to the city via Sumner. 9 Travelling by car gave her many opportunities to admire the landscape, which she regularly compared in interviews to Switzerland and Italy. 10

Pavlova's stamina was remarkable. She was on stage for every performance, appearing in at least one one-act ballet as well as in two of the selection of divertissements which concluded each programme. On occasions she appeared in two one-act ballets and in three divertissements, and every Saturday there was

both a matinee and an evening performance. During the entire tour only one performance was cancelled, a matinee in Dunedin, as Pavlova was to appear in both Chopiniana and Autumn Leaves as well as in two divertissements during her final New Zealand performance that evening. 11 Although the dancers must have been exhausted, and chilled by severe winter weather and inadequately heated theatres, there is no indication that performance standards slipped. Pavlova never wavered from her unremitting quest for perfection. The photographer Stanley Andrew described entering the theatre at 9.30 the morning after the company's opening performance in Wellington, to find a solitary figure practising in the wings

-it was Pavlova. 12 The unremitting cold during the last part of the tour has been given as a reason for Pavlova's decision not to return to New Zealand when she revisited Australia in 1929, but the number of 'one-day stunts,' as she described them, must have been a contributing factor. 13

Cold theatres were not the only problem. The stage of Auckland's His Majesty's Theatre had been specially prepared with a linseed-oil paint that created a treaclelike surface which had to be removed before the performance. 14 In spite of this, there were few complaints about the standard of the theatres, suggesting that New Zealand's theatres in the 1920 s were at least no worse than those encountered elsewhere. Pavlova's company was one of the largest to have toured New Zealand until that time. Her principal dancer, Laurent Novikoff, a graduate of the Moscow Imperial Ballet School, had also performed in Diaghilev's first Ballets Russes season in Paris. He partnered Pavlova on tour in 1911, but only left Russia after the Revolution in 1918, joining Pavlova's company again in 1921 and remaining with her until 1928. 15

New Zealand audiences were delighted by the presence of a local dancer, Thurza Rogers as a premiere danseuse in the company. Rogers had studied dance in Wellington with Estelle Beere, travelling to London in 1920 to study with Seraphima Astavieva, who was also the teacher of Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin and, most famously, Margot Fonteyn. She performed with Karsavina's troupe at the London Coliseum before being invited to join Pavlova's company in 1922. 16 The first in a long line of New Zealand dancers who achieved success in Britain and returned home with visiting companies, Rogers was given a particularly warm reception by her home audiences. She was interviewed by the Dominion and featured in a pagelong article in the New Zealand Free Lance. There, her accounts of working with the Russian dancer reveal admiration and a hint of awe - Pavlova was a relentlessly demanding perfectionist who occasionally reduced her dancers to tears. 17

Much of our inside knowledge of Pavlova's Australasian tour comes from the memoirs of another member of her company, the English character dancer Harcourt Algeranoff. Like other dancers in the Pavlova company he relished the opportunity to find accommodation with friends wherever possible rather than

stay in poorly heated hotels. In Christchurch, those members of the company who had studied with Astafieva in London received a particularly warm welcome from Madeline Vyner, who then operated a dance school in the city. Vyner was another pioneering New Zealand dancer who had studied with Astafieva and had appeared in Diaghilev's famous production of The Sleeping Princess in London in 1921, dancing in the Valse des Fleurs. 18 Contact with her former London life must have been as welcome to Vyner as her hospitality was to the touring dancers. For her Christchurch students, knowing that their teacher had been part of this exotic theatrical world must have been an important stimulus to further study.

Algeranoff was probably the first dancer trained in Western classical ballet to take a serious interest in kapa haka, and during the Auckland season he regularly went to St Stephen's College to learn haka from the boys. Pavlova herself took great interest in the dances and dress of the countries she toured. For example, she was photographed in Indian and Japanese costumes collected while visiting those countries. 19 In Auckland, poi dances and haka were performed in the theatre for her and her company. 20

The repertoire Pavlova brought to New Zealand was less extensive than in Australia. It consisted of three main programmes, which varied in response to audiences' reactions. On the opening night in Auckland the audience had to wait until after the first interval for Pavlova to appear. The programme began with Polish Wedding, a rousing ensemble piece performed by the company. This was followed by The Fairy Doll, a work by Pavlova's ballet master and principal choreographer, Ivan Clustine. 21 Expectation was heightened by the appearance of the ballerina only at the very end of the first scene, from behind a curtain. In the second scene, in which the dolls in the toy shop come to life, Pavlova performed a pas de deux with Novikoff. Contemporary reviewers were captivated by the theatricality of the production and the brilliance of the dancing, but the sequence of divertissements which followed was even more scintillating. Pavlova appeared second in this sequence, performing the work that was already synonymous with her name, The Swan. The critical response published in the Free Lance was typical:

From the orchestra the plaintive melancholy of Le Cygne (The Swan) and into the blue-lit gloom of the stage came the figure of Pavlova as the Dying Swan. Such pathos in that sinuous grace, striving against the pain of weakness, faltering, rising again in anguished appeal and finally sinking to the ground as the wail of the last note dies on the air. 22

Rogers was given an opportunity to shine in the eighteenth-century-inspired Scene Dansante, set to music by Luigi Boccherini. The evening concluded with a performance of the Russian Dance, choreographed by Clustine to music by Tchaikovsky. Wearing a traditional Russian sarafan, Pavlova was partnered by Algeranoff with other members of the company. This carefully orchestrated programme produced a frenzy of applause, and Pavlova was recalled for a dozen curtain calls. By the end of the first night, audiences were anticipating subsequent performances with excitement. 23

The general outline of the opening programme was followed on the following nights. The Magic Flute, choreographed by Petipa to music by Drigo, provided a vehicle for Thurza Rogers' talent - some theatre-goers initially mistook the New Zealander for Pavlova herself. Snowflakes, a version of the winter scene from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, in which Pavlova and Novikoff danced, as well as Pavlova's version of Chopiniana, were performed in versions choreographed by Clustine, although Chopin's Waltz in C-sharp minor was performed to Fokine's original choreography. Chopin's music was also used for a work choreographed by Pavlova herself, Autumn Leaves, described as a 'choreographic poem' and invariably included on the final night at each venue. 24

Among the divertissements, Pavlova regularly performed her own works, including Californian Poppy (to music by Tchaikovsky) and Rondino (Beethoven/ Kreisler). A particular favourite with New Zealand audiences was the Gavotte Pavlova by Clustine, in which Pavlova wore a Directoire-style yellow sheath dress and poke bonnet. Although The Swan was by far the most celebrated of all the works she performed, it was presented sparingly, and usually in only one of the programmes offered in each centre.

Pavlova's programmes never aimed to shock and astonish in the way that those of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes did. At a time when Fokine, Nijinsky and Massine were extending the boundaries of the art in their works for Diaghilev, Pavlova was content to inhabit existing forms with unequalled brilliance. 25 Her choice of music was limited to works by established ballet composers. In set and costume design she was also less adventurous than Diaghilev, but she nevertheless employed some of the leading set and costume designers of the time. A perceptive critic in Wellington noted of the Russian Dance the 'Leon Bakst setting with a vertical village, in toy-shop colouring, for a back-cloth, whilst the dresses resembled stamped prints - very bizarre and pretty.' 26 The set and costume designs were not, in fact, by Bakst - one of Diaghilev's best-known and most brilliant artist collaborators - but by another member of the group of artists which constituted the Russian Silver Age of the early twentieth century, Serge Sudeikin. A Muscovite who, like Bakst, was both a painter and theatrical designer. Sudeikin designed

Salome for Diaghilev in 1913, and his characteristic use of bold colour and sinuous line could easily have been mistaken for the work of the more famous Bakst. 27

The costumes for Snowflakes were by another Russian artist, Konstantin Korovin, while the decor was by the Austrian architect and designer Josef Urban. The decor and costumes for The Fairy Doll were the work of yet another well-known Russian, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky - an

artist better known for his unflinching response to the brutal suppression of Russia's 1905 Revolution, October Idyll (1905). 28 The commissioning of Ivan Bilibin as designer of costumes for the Egyptian Ballet (1917) comes as something of a surprise. Bilibin was a member of the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) group in St Petersburg, and was known for his interest in Russian medieval and folk art, the influence of which can be seen in his book illustrations and theatre designs. It was, no doubt, the stylised nature of Egyptian art that appealed to him. 29 For New Zealand audiences, designs by artists such as Sudeikin and Bilibin would have seemed strikingly new, helping to create what one newspaper headline described as 'Poetry of Motion, Sound and Colour.' 30

Another well-known designer employed by Pavlova was the French artist and illustrator George Barbier. He produced a celebrated portfolio of studies of dancers of the Ballets Russes, including Nijinsky and Karsavina, but he also worked as a theatre designer. 31 His designs for Amarilla date from 1912, and combine exotic gypsy costumes with elegant eighteenth-century dress, with a backdrop inspired by Watteau. Pavlova's roster of artists and designers may not have been as celebrated as those used by the Ballets Russes, but many had been important protagonists in the revolutionary phase of early twentieth-century Russian art, which had a profound impact on European art of the period. Conservative though she may have been with regard to music and choreography, Pavlova's choices in stage design were more progressive than is usually recognised.

Contemporary newspaper reports provide ample evidence of the enthusiasm with which Pavlova and her company were greeted in New Zealand. Such was the fervour in Christchurch that at the end of her farewell performance the audience continued their appreciation outside the theatre:

Christchurch nearly forgot itself so much on Saturday night, at the farewell performance of Anna Pavlova ... as to cheer at the close of the performance, but it remembered itself in time, and contented itself by indulging in a storm of hand clapping.

[Pavlova] was recalled about a dozen times and even then her admirers were loath to let her depart. The great dancer will never be forgotten by those who were privileged to see her. A large crowd of admirers waited outside the stage door on Saturday night for the last glimpse of the diva as she stepped into her car, and one or two were fortunate to get her autograph. The crowd gave her a great reception, and her car had to be driven with care to avoid colliding with Madame's well-wishers. 32

Pavlova herself responded favourably to New Zealand audiences. The enthusiasm of the Wellington audience drew a characteristic response from the dancer:

'Wellington has won her heart. It is a long time since I have seen Pavlova dance as she danced tonight,' said one in the audience who has seen her many times. ... [S]o thrilled was Pavlova by the reception given her that she generously added another dance, one of the brightest of all, the famous Gavotte, which she danced with Laurent Novikoff. 33

In contrast, Pavlova remarked on the comparative coolness of her Auckland reception: 'ln Auckland it was cold-the people-myself-it was not-.' The missing word flashed across her face, in fleeting expression. 'There are grey days and bright days, and so it is with us. Wellington! Ah! I cannot say yet-one night-that was splendid. They were responsive. I felt it. That crowd at the station to receive me-all those young faces, so bright, eyes open, smiling happy, healthy-it is the country. I felt it then. I cannot say yet if all the audiences will be as that first-but, perhaps-yes?' 34

Newspaper reviews were almost entirely complimentary, although a more critical note was sounded by one Dunedin reviewer who found the second of the three programmes less satisfying than the other two. Of more serious concern for the reporter of the Hawke's Bay Tribune was the reaction of the Hastings audience, which despite being large, 'was lamentably unappreciative, applauding like clockwork, apparently from a sense of duty to one so justly famous. While those remarks are true of the audience as a whole, there was, of course, a not inconsiderable section which was enthusiastic in its laudation.' By contrast, performances in Napier were greeted with 'vociferous applause.' 35 An important contributor to the reception and critical success of the performances was that of the orchestra, conducted by Lucien Wurmser. The quality of their playing forms a consistent theme in newspaper reports throughout the tour.

For many, the memory of seeing Pavlova perform lasted a lifetime. In Christchurch, Ruth Smith (nee Cannon), who was then learning ballet with Irene Mulvaney-Gray, was taken to her first performance at the Theatre Royal at the age of 10. Sitting on a cushion in the stalls she saw Pavlova perform The Swan. Eighty-three years later she could still recall it in vivid detail:

[She had] frothy' long arms. Hands and arms like a swan's head ... getting weaker, then a spurt - each time with less energy, then fluttered - struggled a wee bit more - her hands, feet, head came together and she went limp.

Curtain. When the curtain went up for the curtain call, Pavlova was still in her final position as the dying swan on stage. 36

Ruth Smith probably attended a Saturday matinee, when children were admitted at half price. Ticket prices were the same for all venues: £l.ls for reserved stalls and circle; 125.6 d for unreserved stalls and circle; and 55.3 d in the gallery. The 2009 equivalent of these prices is about SBS, $52 and S2O respectively, and seem relatively modest for an international star of Pavlova's magnitude.

Very few people who saw Pavlova dance in 1926 are alive today, but her legacy has been preserved in photographs taken wherever she performed and in almost all her roles. From the start of her career Pavlova was aware of the power of photography to shape her image. 37 Photographs of Pavlova taken in the Auckland and Wellington theatres were displayed in photographers' windows, providing extra publicity. Signed copies were sometimes given to admirers.

In Auckland, the brothers Frederick and Herbert Tornquist had made a speciality of photographing visiting actors and musicians, and it was almost inevitable that they should want to photograph Pavlova. The writer Robin Hyde evocatively describes the experience:

Of all his stars [Pavlova] was the most exacting. No studio portraits, with a few vamped up effects in the background, for the Fairy Doll, over whom, I remember, one customarily reserved paper went into a sort of poetic trance ... Pavlova, and any other members of her company who were to appear in the photographs taken, always went down to the theatre, and had the pictures taken so that it was correct and artistic in every touch. She was no poseuse for every chance camera: result... the Fairy Doll, dead after a long life under her dancing star, is never libelled by photographs which travesty her art. 38

Three Tornquist negatives of Pavlova and Novikoff in their roles in The Fairy Doll, as well as a fourth showing Pavlova alone, survive in the Auckland City Library's photographic collection. 39 There is evidence of extensive retouching, done to achieve the exacting standards demanded by Pavlova. At a time when photographic technology was only beginning to make it possible to capture dancers

in motion, static poses were chosen to illustrate key moments from the ballet. The surviving negatives tell only part of the story, for photographs by Tornquist of Pavlova in other roles were also published. 40

In Wellington another well-known photographer, Stanley Andrew, carried his heavy equipment to the Grand Opera House to capture a remarkable sequence of photographs of the dancer. There, between 11p.m. and 2.30a.m., while electricians and theatre technicians remained willingly on duty to assist, she took one pose after another making many changes of costume between each picture.' 41 Pavlova must have quickly recognised that Andrew was a skilled photographer with a sympathetic eye, and more than 20 negatives survive for photographs taken during her Wellington season. Andrew returned to the theatre with his camera night after night, capturing the dancer in a variety of roles. 42 A sequence of poses from Chopiniana resulted in some of the most famous and widely reproduced studies of the dancer. 43 For one pose a slit was cut in a curtain to allow an invisible hand to support her in an arabesque; 44 in another she seems to float in a cloud of tulle. 45 Clearly pleased with the results, Pavlova ordered 800 photographs from Andrew, arriving at his studio to pay for them with cash, and remaining to sign some for his staff. 46

Andrew's photographs included roles that Pavlova was not currently dancing; she appeared in the Grecian costumes from Primavera, 47 and in a sequence of seven poses from the Egyptian Ballet, in which she wears the exotic costume designed by Ivan Bilibin. 48 Here Pavlova is truly performing for the camera, adopting a series of stylised poses that, when viewed as a sequence, seem almost cinematic. Surprisingly, the Egyptian Ballet was performed only once in New Zealand, in the second Dunedin programme. The Evening Star's critic had reservations about it, although she admired the performances of Pavlova and Novikoff:

The 'Egyptian ballet'was like a series of magnificent enchantments from Tutankhamen's tomb. It was purely decorative, and for that reason hardly the highest art form; but nevertheless it was wreathed in the aureole of distinction that Pavlova has given us. The chiselled grace of the figures—they were hardly of flesh and blood—provided a remarkable background for Pavlova and Novikoff, who touched the scene into luminosity with their arabesques. 49

The theme was certainly topical, as Tutankhamen's tomb had been discovered only four years earlier, although the ballet itself had been created earlier, in 1917. At least one group of Andrew's photographs - four studies in which Pavlova strikes a series of poses dressed in Grecian sandals and a sarong-like costume 50 - seems to have no connection with any known ballet, although she was also photographed in Montevideo in 1928 by Nicolas Yarovoff, another favourite photographer, draped

in the same distinctive fabric. 51 Was this a unique, impromptu and improvised 'performance' given solely for the camera? 52

Pavlova was one of the most photographed women of her generation, and the photographic record of her career is one of the most extensive of any dancer. She was photographed in almost every country in which she danced. In this respect, the fact that she was photographed while in New Zealand is unexceptional; more remarkable is the fact that these photographs have become an essential part of the pictorial record of one of the world's greatest dancers, captured in some of her most famous roles. A few of these images are frequently reproduced in books on Pavlova and the Ballets Russes, but often the photographer is unidentified and their connection with her New Zealand tour remains hidden. 53 Many, however, have never been reproduced or displayed. Although Pavlova and Novikoff were photographed in the Egyptian Ballet by E. O. Hoppe in the garden of Pavlova's London home in 1923, the sequence of Pavlova's solitary poses for this ballet has not been published. Similarly, Turnquist's photographs of The Fairy Doll and Andrew's of Rondino, Primavera and the Russian Dance are virtually unknown. 54 These photographs form an important part of New Zealand's theatrical and photographic histories, and as a group they also make a small but significant contribution to the history of ballet in the twentieth century.

Still photographs can suggest but never capture the essence of dance - which is movement. We are left with the mystery of how Pavlova, night after night, managed to dazzle audiences around the world for more than 20 years. The impact of her dancing was perhaps best described by the London critic Cyril Beaumont, writing in 1932:

All her dancing was distinguished by its grace, airiness, and absence of visible effort. It was sincere, refined, marked by a vivid sense of style-atmosphere, and a genuine and deeply felt reverence for the poetry of movement. She never permitted her dancing to become exaggerated; and even in her most ecstatic moments she retained complete control over her mind and body.... She was first and last a great individual artist, a complete unity in herself, who had the supreme power of not only being able to breathe into a dance her own flame-like spirit, but, no matter how many times she had danced it before, to invest it with an air of spontaneity, novelty, and freshness, as though it had just been born. She was something more than a great artist-dancer. She made her features speak and her body sing. 55

What, in the end, was the impact of Pavlova's New Zealand tour? Her performances were major theatrical events for New Zealand audiences, and they must have inspired countless young dancers to pursue ballet at a time when careers for dancers in New Zealand were almost unimaginable. Perhaps just as importantly, she helped create an audience for ballet, so that when de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo toured in 1937 there was an audience who already had some idea of what to expect. In a curious series of connections, it was Pavlova who brought the Czechoslovakian dancer Eduard Borovansky to Australia on her second tour there, in 1929. Borovansky returned to Australia with the Ballets Russes in 1939 and chose to remain, founding his own company. 56 After the Second World War the Borovansky Ballet regularly visited New Zealand, bringing with it the Danish dancer Poul Gnatt who, in turn, returned to set up the New Zealand Ballet in 1953. In this sense Pavlova has a strong connection with the founding of professional ballet in New Zealand.

Just over four years after touring New Zealand, Pavlova died of pleurisy in The Hague, on 23 January 1931, at the beginning of yet another Continental tour. Without its star and driving force her company could not survive, and a number of her dancers eventually found their way to the new Ballets Russes companies which were reassembling in the early 1930 s following Diaghilev's death in 1929. Within less than two years, the great dancer and the remarkable impresario who effectively defined ballet in the first third of the twentieth century were gone. A century after the first Ballets Russes performances in Paris and 83 years after Pavlova toured New Zealand, their legacies are with us still.

ENDNOTES 1 New Zealand Herald, 26 May 1926, p. 15. 2 Auckland Star, 25 May 1926, p. 10. 3 For a comprehensive biography of Pavlova see Keith Money, Anna Pavlova: Her Life and Art (London: Collins, 1982). 4 For a reproduction of this poster see John Bowlt (ed.), A Feast of Wonders: Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes (Milan: Skira, 2009), p. 125. 5 The literature on Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes is extensive. Richard Buckle, Diaghilev (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979) is an essential biography, and S. L. Grigoriev, The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909-1929 (London: Constable, 1953) provides an unrivalled first-hand account. 6 F. Gadan and R. Maillard, A Dictionary of Modern Ballet (London: Methuen, 1959), p. 263. 7 For a survey of touring ballet companies in the first half of the twentieth century in New Zealand see Tara Jahn-Werner, The Illustrated History of Dance in New Zealand (Auckland: Random House, 1980). 8 New Zealand Free Lance, 2 June 1926, p. 45; Timaru Herald, 28 June 1926, p. 12; Evening Star [Dunedin], 5 July 1926, p. 2. 9 The Press [Christchurch], 21 June 1926, p. 8. 10 See, for example, Dominion, 12 June 1926, p. 3. 11 Otago Daily Times, 2 July 1926, p. 1. 12 Evening Post, 2 April 1959, p. 18.

13 H. Algeranoff, My Years with Pavlova (London: Heinemann, 1957), p. 145; Dominion, 12 June 1926, p. 3. 14 My Years with Pavlova, pp. 143-44. 15 A. Chujoy and P. W. Manchester, The Dance Encyclopaedia (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), pp. 679-80. 16 Thurza Rogers, 'Wellington Dancer's Brilliant Return.' New Zealand Free Lance, 23 June 1926, p. 34. 17 Dominion, 15 June 1926, p. 4. The experience of returning home as a leading dancer with a world-famous ballet company must have been both rewarding and unsettling for Rogers. At the end of the final Australian leg of the tour she was one of a small group of dancers who left the company after their final performances in Adelaide, taking up a contract with the Australian impresario J. C. Williamson and remaining in Australia. See My Years with Pavlova, p. 147.

18 My Years with Pavlova, p. 145. 19 Anna Pavlova: Her Life and Art, p. 322. 20 My Years with Pavlova, p. 144. 21 Clustine was a veteran of the Maryinsky Theatre who moved to Monte Carlo in 1905 and later became a choreographer at the Paris Opera. He was Pavlova's principal choreographer from 1914 and toured with her company for 18 years. 22 New Zealand Free Lance, 16 June 1926, p. 51. 23 New Zealand Herald, 27 May 1926, p. 15. 24 Programmes for Pavlova's New Zealand performances can be found in the Auckland City Library (Ephemera 1926, Dance, Pavlova, Anna & Theatre, Drama, J. C. Williamson 1926); Alexander Turnbull Library (Eph A Dance 1926); Christchurch City Library (Theatre Royal Collection); Hocken Library (MS-1226/043 Stinton, Walter James: Papers) and Dunedin Public Library (New Zealand Collection). 25 For detailed information on the repertoire performed by Pavlova see J. and R. Lazzarini, Pavlova: Repertoire of a Legend (New York: Schirmer-Dance Horizons, 1980). 26 Dominion, 14 June 1926, p. 10.

27 Sudeikin was a member of the World of Art group in St Petersburg, a friend of Diaghilev, and assistant to Nicholas Roerich on Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in 1913. He was for a time married to the dancer Vera de Bosset, who later became Stravinsky's wife. Like so many of his generation he left Russia after the 1917 Revolution and eventually settled in the United States. For a recent account of early twentieth-century Russian art see John E. Bowlt, Moscow and St Petersburg in Russia's Silver Age (London: Thames & Hudson, 2008). 28 See Moscow and St Petersburg in Russia's Silver Age, p. 192. Dobuzhinsky designed Papillons (1912) and Midas (1914) for the Ballets Russes. 29 Bilibin worked in Egypt as a theatre designer from 1920-25, eventually returning to Russia in 1936. 30 Dominion, 17 June 1926, p. 4. 31 George Barbier, Designs on the Dances of Vaslav Nijinsky (London: C. W. Beaumont, 1913). 32 The Press, 28 June 1926, p. 11. 33 New Zealand Free Lance, 16 June 1926, p. 51. 34 New Zealand Free Lance, 16 June 1926, p. 6a. 35 Maxine Anderson, 'Anna Pavlova in New Zealand.' Newest City News (May 2009):12. 36 lam especially grateful to Ruth Smith's daughter-in-law Kate de Courcy for recording these recollections in December 2008 and January and May 2009.

37 For accounts of Pavlova's attitude towards photography see V. Dandrb, Anna Pavlova (London: Cassell, 1932), pp. 236-39, and Pavlova: Repertoire of a Legend, pp. 16-20. 38 Robin Hyde, Journalese (Auckland: National Printing, 1934), p. 81. 39 Auckland City Library, photograph collection, 601-2640 A; 601-2640 D; 601-2640 E; 601-2640 P. 40 For example, a photograph by Tornquist of Pavlova in Gavotte is reproduced in Dandr6, p. 132. 41 Evening Post, 9 April 1959. Stanley Andrew was Wellington's leading portrait photographer of the interwar period, operating as S. P. Andrew Studio. He was trained in England, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1902. See David Eggleton, Into the Light: A History of Photography in New Zealand (Nelson: Craig Potton, 2006), pp. 85-86. 42 New Zealand Free Lance, 5 September 1958, p. 6.

43 Andrew submitted one of these photographs to Art in New Zealand: see Art in New Zealand 1, no. 1 (September 1928): 64, plate xix. 44 Evening Post, 9 April 1959; 019130 1/1; 019146 1/1, Alexander Turnbill Library (ATL). 45 Private collection. 46 Evening Post, 2 April 1959, p. 18. 47 19129 1/1; 19157 1/1; 19160 1/1, ATL. 48 19140 1/1; 19163 1/1; 19164 1/1; 19166 1/1; 19167 1/1; 19168 1/1; 19169 1/1, ATL. 49 Evening Star, 2 July 1926, p. 2. 50 19158 1/1; 019161 1/1; 19162 1/1; 019165 1/1, ATL. 51 Anna Pavlova: Her Life and Art, p. 379. 52 One of this sequence was published as an advertisement for S. P. Andrew Studios in Art in New Zealand 1, no. 4 (June 1929): vi. 53 The first was Wilfred Hyden, Pavlova: The Genius of Dance (London: Constable, 1931), where an Andrew photo of Pavlova in Chopiniana is reproduced without acknowledgement (p. 122). Grigoriev reproduced another Andrew photo in the same role, also without acknowledgement, in 1953 (The Diaghilev Ballet, 1909-1929, p. 16). 54 ATL 19131 1/1; 19135 1/1; 19151 1/1; 19153 1/1; 19159 1/1; 19170 1/1. 55 Cyril Beaumont, Anna Pavlova (London: C. W. Beaumont, 1932), quoted in The Dance Encyclopaedia, p. 714. 56 See Frank Salter, Borovansky: The Man Who Made Australian Ballet (Sydney: Wildcat, 1980).