Happy Families....cont'd

 My great Aunt was a Prima Ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet Company, based in London rather than Moscow. I always believed she thought it would be too cold for her pirouettes. In her time, she danced with all the greats, Nijinsky, Neuryev, Kalashnikov....no, that's a gun isn't it..... Baryshnikov. 

Unfortunately, like my musician Uncle, her career was bought to a somewhat premature end. 

She was dancing Swan Lake at Sandler's Wells in Covent Garden with the Principal Male dancer and the performance was going really well, the audience was enthralled, the atmosphere magical as they enjoyed watching one of the World's best in one of the most famous of ballets.

They arrived at the Dying Swan scene and she was supposed to swoon, gracefully, into his arms. Well, swoon she did but unfortunately, he dropped her, straight on her Arabesque. It wasn't pretty and was hardly her fault, but the worst part was, as she fell, she reached out with her hand to stop herself, grabbed the front of his tights, ripped them down and completely ruined his pas de deux.......

The last anyone heard of her, she was a Fan Dancer at the Windmill Theatre in Soho....



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