Pavlova in Shanghai

A quick follow up to my post on Tamara Toumanova – as several people asked – who did she see dance in Shanghai when as a young girl she saw her first ballet and became inspired to become a ballerina? The answer is Pavlova and Tamara was only 4 or 5 years old – she must have made quite an impression.

Pavlova, already internationally famous, toured the Far East in 1922-23. She took a company comprising 25 dancers and four musicians as well as a backstage crew. They visited a number of locations across Asia including Java in the Dutch East Indies, Japan, India and Egypt, as well as Shanghai. Pavlova returned to her adopted home of England in July 1923. Tamara, a toddler really, must have seen her dance The Dying Swan – as well as performances at the Town Hall, she danced privately for young foreign schoolchildren, paid for by Florence Ayscough (see Lindsay Shen’s Knowledge is Pleasure).

Pavlova in 1922

the old Shanghai Town Hall on Nanking Road – long gone of course