Tamara Karsavina (1885-1978). Russian prima ballerina, teacher and co-founder of the Royal Academy of Dance

Tamara Karsavina was born in St Petersburg in 1885 into a dancing family – her father, Platon Karsavin, was a principal with the Russian Imperial Ballet. She studied at the Imperial Ballet School under Pavel Gerdt, Christian Johansson and Enrico Cecchetti, and also with the Italian Caterina Beretta in order to strengthen her technique. She made her debut as a soloist with the Imperial Ballet in 1902 and was made a ballerina in 1909. That same year she joined Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes as a principal dancer, paired at first with Vaslav Nijinsky. She created the leading roles in many of its major ballets, including Mikhail Fokine’s Les Sylphides, Le Carnaval, Petrushka, Le Spectre de la Rose, The Firebird and Daphnis and Chloë.

Having married her second husband, the English diplomat H.J. Bruce, she left Russia in 1918 and spent the rest of her life there, mainly in London. She danced again for Diaghilev from 1919 until 1922, and again in 1926. In Britain she played a prominent role in the ballet world. She was Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Dance from its foundation in 1920 until 1955, and devised syllabuses for it. In 1930 she danced for the Marie Rambert Dancers in the year of its inception. She coached Margot Fonteyn and other leading dancers in roles she had created, including the Firebird, as well as Giselle. She taught Frederick Ashton the mime scenes from both La Fille Mal gardée and Giselle as she remembered it from the Maryinsky, and she also coached Rudolf Nureyev. In addition, Karsavina wrote extensively for the Dancing Times magazine throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Her 90th birthday was marked by a celebration at which toasts were proposed by Ashton and Sir John Gielgud. Tamara Karsavina died in 1978 in Beaconsfield, universally mourned in the ballet world.