Anna Pavlova was a Russian ballerina around the turn of the 20th century. She was born on January 31, 1881 around St. Petersberg, Russia. She fell in love with ballet after her mother took her to a ballet performance of "Sleeping Beauty." When she started ballet at the Maryinsky School, she showed little or no talent for ballet. After she took the aspects of her body and talent, she excelled at ballet. She created the shape of my shoe with its trademark shank and platform, that conserves a certain foot shape's (like mine) energy.

Pavlova had beautiful energy and romantic lyricism. It showed when she danced her well known-role as "The Dying Swan". The choreography was simple, but because she put so much emotion into it, her dancing was beautiful. By 1907, she had become a star at the Maryinsky ballet.

Sadly, she grew up mostly on the road. She worked so hard that she had to cut hard parts of her dances out. She was not afraid to alter her shoes, so she would have more foot power. Pavlova was very image-conscious, so she retouched all of her photos so that people could not see her feet.

The end of her life came in 1931, when she got pluerisy. She may have been saved by a surgery that would have cured her pluerisy, but it would have ended her ballet career. She chose to die rather than give up dancing. One of the last things she ever said was, "Get my swan costume ready." Ballet was her life, essentially.

I feel that she had good qualities, but she was very image conscious, and she eventually gave her life up because she could not dance. This was sad because, even if she could not have danced ballet, she could have helped so many dancers with her technique. I hope that I never give up something like that.

After a set of bourees and a plie, this is minty0323, signing off.

For more on Anna Pavlova, try http://www.dancer.com/Pavlova.html.