Why is Anna Famous?
Anna Pavlova graduated from the St. Petersburg Imperial Dance School in 1899 at age 18. Her company debut was dancing in a group of three in La Fille Mal Gardée. Soon after, her career as a dancer took off. Each performance she was in gained her more and more fame. However, her major claim to fame comes from dancing in The Dying Swan. Only seven years after she began dancing professionally, she was promoted to "prima ballerina." She joined the Ballet Russe in 1909 and formed her own company in 1911. With this company, she toured all around the world. She was the first to do such a tour.
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Anna's famous "Dying Swan" sequence
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Death
In 1930, Anna was 49 years old and had been dancing for about 30 years. She took a vacation during Christmas after a particularly difficult tour. After the vacation, she boarded a train to The Hague, where she would continue dancing. The train was in an accident on the way there and although Anna was not harmed, she was forced to wait 12 hours (due to the delay) on the train platform until she could travel again. Because the weather was so cold, Anna would contract double pneumonia days later. The illness quickly worsened and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. Her ashes are kept at Golders Green Crematorium in London.
"No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius."
-Anna Pavlova
-Anna Pavlova