Dance Masters & Ballerinas

Thamar/Tamera

(1885-1978) age 93

Karsavina was a leading ballerina of Tsar's Imperial Ballet, Russia.  She performed all of  Marius Petipa’s repertory. Among her famous roles were Lise in La Fille Mal Gardee & Medora in Le Corsaire. 1910s she was with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe, dancing her most famous roles in the ballets of Mikhail Fokine, including Petrushka, Le Spectre de la Rose & title role in Fokine's The Firebird. By 1929 she was teaching. The Thamar Karsavina School of Dance offered Ballet, Toe, and Character dance.  It was located at The Great Central Hotel, London.

 

Karsavina had an ad and is listed in the credits of the 1929 Lindendare program.

(1884-1951) age 67

Bolm made a significant contribution to West Coast Ballet.  He graduated Russian Imperial Ballet School, in1904 at age 20.  In 1908-9, he toured with Anna Pavlova, while dancing with Mariinsky Ballet.  In 1917, during a tour of America with Ballets Russes, Bolm was seriously injured during a performance of Thamar.  A long recovery left him in the USA, where he danced, taught, choreographed, for the rest of his life.  Chicago became his base in 1919.  He organized Ballet Intime in New York; choreographed for NY Metropolitan Opera, 1921-3 provided summer workshops & produced original works at Cornish (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle WA.  In 1929, Bolm moved to California and continued to work in CA & NY until 1947.  In 1940, he was 1 of 5 choreographers for NY’s Ballet Theatre’s 1st season.  His last appearance as a dancer was 1943, as Moor, in Ballet Theatre’s Petrushka, performed at the Hollywood Bowl. "Mephisto" was his last choreography, created in 1947 for San Francisco Ballet.