AT the beginning of the 20th century, two dance companies galvanised a worldwide audience for ballet, enthralling first-time dance-goers and aficionados alike with performances of touching profundity, thrilling exoticism and brilliant classical technique. The two troupes – Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and the company of star ballerina Anna Pavlova – were both were led by leading dancers from Russia’s Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. Yet they could not have been more different in their repertoire or the audiences they pursued.
“Pavlova, paying tribute to the maestro before her own sudden passing in 1931, reflected that nearly all the best dancers of her era had passed through his hands.”
Pavlova, whose slender, ethereal physique belied her inexhaustible energy and single-minded determination, carried her art “into the outposts of civilisation” as one contemporary remarked. Dancing ballets accessible to audiences from England to Panama, Japan
