Shanghai’s 1920s Balletomane Fad and Tamara Toumanova

Today, a ballerina…In the 1920s Shanghai, largely due to the arrival of so many White Russians, went through a balletomane fad. The future ballerina and inspiration to the choreographer George Balanchine (when she was one of the famous “Baby Ballerina’s” (1903-1984)), Tamara Toumanova, was a White Russian refugee child who saw her first ballet in Shanghai in the 1920s, though didn’t formerly study ballet until her family had moved on from China to Paris.