Anna Pavlova - 'Fragment from the Ballet 'Dionysus' (1925)

John Hall
John Hall
6.3 هزار بار بازدید - 11 سال پیش - This is footage of Anna
This is footage of Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) dancing what was described in the programme for the London premiere of 'Immortal Swan' in January 1936 as 'Fragment from the Ballet 'Dionysus' - Music by Nicholas Tcherepine'.

It was filmed in 1925 as one of a series of films shot the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio.

Pavlova researchers Judy and David have been in correspondence with the Mary Pickford Foundation and most kindly have passed this on to us:


"The 1924/1925 Pavlova Company American tour began in New York on 17 October 1924 and ended on 25 March 1925 in El Paso, Texas. From there, the Company travelled to Mexico for a four week season, opening on 11 April.

In his 1932 'Anna Pavlova in Art and Life', Victor Dandre writes of the filming with Fairbanks and how it came it came about. When the Pavlova Company was performing in California on the last leg of the 1924/1925 tour, she showed Fairbanks and Pickford the films she had made with Lee De Forest, who, according to Dandre, as well as suggesting that Pavlova should film some of her dances with them, even thought that Pavlova should make another feature film ' ..... one in which the dance came in as part of the action, and not as an obviously super-added episode. They were so interested that they called in Charlie Chaplin, also a great admirer of Pavlova's, to look at our film.'

Dandre goes on: 'From California, we went to Mexico, whence we were to return direct to Europe. A few days later we received a letter from Douglas Fairbanks in which he said that the possibility of reproducing Pavlova's dances on the screen seemed to him very important and very interesting. He offered his studio with all the personnel, the lighting and the photographers, and had prepared himself to help her with advice, if she would return agree to return to Los Angeles for two or three days in order to have the film taken under suitable conditions. Pavlova was tempted by this kind offer, and when our season in Mexico was over, she took a few baskets of costumes with her and we went off to make a new trial.'.

Dandre then goes on to write that Pickford and Fairbanks were most attentive and gave Pavlova every assistance. Pickford gave Pavlova the use of her own grimeur and that Pickford 'While making her own film in a studio next door, she used to come in to see how Pavlova was getting on ....'

In his 1956 memoir 'Around the World with Pavlova', Harcourt Algeranoff writes of the 1924/1925 American tour and states that after the season in Mexico 'Pavlova now left us for California where she was going to make some experimental films with Douglas Fairbanks ....' ."


Watching the snippet of film, I'm reminded of a comment made by Sir Frederick Ashton in interview with Natalia Makarova. Having seen her perform when he was a child growing up in Peru and then later in England, he remembered what wonderfully expressive arms and hands the ballerina had. And of course this also extends to the way she uses her whole body - her head and neck, her eyes, her torso - so they seem fluid and plastic.

This little film I think captures something of these qualities in particular.

Enjoy!
11 سال پیش در تاریخ 1392/06/13 منتشر شده است.
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