Serafina Astafieva (1876-1934). Russian dancer and teacher

Born in St Petersburg in 1876, Serafina Astafieva became an important teacher in London in the early years of the 20th century. Her pupils included Anton Dolin, Alicia Markova and Margot Fonteyn. Astafieva graduated into the corps de ballet of the Maryinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1895 from the Imperial Ballet School. In 1896 she married the character dancer Jozef Kshessinsky, brother of the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska. From 1909 until 1911 Astafieva danced with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, appearing in its first London season. She danced briefly for the Imperial Ballet in Budapest in 1914 before settling in London, where she was introduced by her friend Ezra Pound to the poet TS Eliot, who pictured her as the seductive Grishkin in his early poem Whispers of Immortality. Pound himself introduced her in his Canto 79 as conserving ‘the tradition from Byzance’. The artistic atmosphere of London, and her place within it, is suggested by these poetic references. Astafieva’s school was based in The Pheasantry on King’s Road and she died in London in 1934.