Ballerina born in St. Peteresburg, Russia, Pavlova became the greatest dancer of her age,famous especially for her solo "The Dying Swan" created for her by Mikhail Fokine.
She studied at the Imperial Ballet School , made her debut at the Maryinsky Theater and because a prima ballerina there in 1906. She toured Europe, danced with DIAGHILEV's Ballets Russes in Paris and London and performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1910. She excelled in such classics as Giselle, Swan Lake and Les Sylphides. In 1913, she resigned from the Imperial Ballet, moved to London and opened her own school of mostly English dancers. She and her company toured all over the world, even in South America and Australia.
Pavlova's name became a household word in her time, a word synonymous with airy lightness and grace of movement suggesting poetic spirituality.
~Facts on File Dictionary of Historical and Cultural Allusions.
