‘Where Burns the Artist's Soul’: Tamara Karsavina's Writings on Artistry and Expression

Abstract

The ballerina Tamara Karsavina experienced vast shifts from romantic and post-romantic 1 performance styles to twentieth-century modernism. In the first section of this essay, I give an overview of these shifts; then, I explore Karsavina's writings for insights into her views on performance and artistry. In her writing, she develops her artistic credo and expresses the conviction that to contribute to a living art form, ballet dancers must deepen their expressivity while expanding technique and their practice of classical mime. For her, the future of ballet can be found in the traditions of the danse d'école and the classical repertoire