[4] Anna Matveyevna Pavlova was born in the Preobrazhensky Regiment hospital, Saint Petersburg where her father, Matvey Pavlovich Pavlov, served.

Her mother, Lyubov Feodorovna Pavlova, came from peasants and worked as a laundress at the house of a Russian-Jewish banker, Lazar Polyakov, for some time.

When Anna rose to fame, Polyakov's son Vladimir claimed that she was an illegitimate daughter of his father; others speculated Matvey came from Crimean Karaites (there is a monument in one of Yevpatoria's kenesas dedicated to Pavlova), yet both legends find no historical proof.

[7] Pavlova's passion for the art of ballet took off when her mother took her to a performance of Marius Petipa's original production of The Sleeping Beauty at the Imperial Maryinsky Theater in 1890.

Her severely arched feet, thin ankles and long limbs clashed with the small, compact body favoured for the ballerina of the time.

At the height of Petipa's strict academicism, the public was taken aback by Pavlova's style, a combination of a gift that paid little heed to academic rules: she frequently performed with bent knees, bad turnout, misplaced port de bras and incorrectly placed tours.

You should always do the kind of dancing which brings out your own rare qualities instead of trying to win praise by mere acrobatic tricks.Pavlova rose through the ranks quickly, becoming a favorite of the old maestro Petipa.

From him she learned the title role in Paquita, Princess Aspicia in The Pharaoh's Daughter, Queen Nisia in Le Roi Candaule and Giselle.

Kschessinska, not wanting to be upstaged, was certain Pavlova would fail in the role, as she was considered technically inferior because of her small ankles and lithe legs.

Instead, audiences became enchanted with Pavlova and her frail, ethereal look, which fit the role perfectly, particularly in the scene The Kingdom of the Shades.

According to the film A Portrait of Giselle, Karsavina recalls a wardrobe malfunction during a performance; her shoulder straps fell, exposing her breasts and Pavlova helped embarrass her to tears.

Originally, she was to dance the lead in Mikhail Fokine's The Firebird, but refused the part, as she could not come to terms with Igor Stravinsky's avant-garde score, and the role was given to Tamara Karsavina.

All her life, she preferred the melodious "musique dansante" of the old maestros such as Cesare Pugni and Ludwig Minkus, caring little for anything else which strayed from the salon-style ballet music of the 19th century.

[13] In 1918–1919, her company toured throughout South America, during which time Pavlova exerted an influence on the young American ballerina Ruth Page.

[17] The house had an ornamental lake where she fed her pet swans, and where now stands a statue of her by the Scots sculptor George Henry Paulin.

It used to be the London Jewish Cultural Centre, but a blue plaque marks it as a site of significant historical interest being Pavlova's home.

The Gate public house (https://thegatearkley.co.uk) located on the border of Arkley and Totteridge (London Borough of Barnet), has a story, framed on its walls, describing a visit by Pavlova and her dance company.

During the last five years of her life, one of her soloists, Cleo Nordi, another St Petersburg ballerina, became her dedicated assistant, having left the Paris Opera Ballet in 1926 to join her company and accompanied her on her second Australian tour to Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney in 1929.

The list began with Madame Louise Homer, prima donna contralto of the Metropolitan Grand Opera Co., followed by Josef Hofmann, pianist, Pavlova with the Russian ballet.

At the Pavlova concert, when Gooding engaged, at the last hour, the Russian dancer for two nights, the New York managers became dubious and anxiously rushed four special advance agents to assist her.

On seeing the bookings for both nights, they quietly slipped back to New York fully convinced of her ability to attract audiences in St. Louis, which had always, heretofore, been called "the worst show town" in the country.

Dandré wrote of Pavlova's many charity dance performances and charitable efforts to support Russian orphans in post-World War I Paris ...who were in danger of finding themselves literally in the street.

She died of pleurisy in the bedroom next to the Japanese Salon of the Hotel Des Indes in The Hague twenty days short of her 50th birthday.

Victor Dandré wrote that Pavlova died a half hour past midnight on Friday, 23 January 1931, with her maid Marguerite Létienne, Zalevsky and himself at her bedside.

[32] In accordance with old ballet tradition, on the day she was to have next performed, the show went on, as scheduled, with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where Pavlova would have been.

Golders Green Crematorium had made arrangements for them to be flown to Russia for interment on 14 March 2001 in a ceremony to be attended by various Russian dignitaries.

The critic of The Observer wrote on 16 April 1911: "Mr. Lavery's portrait of the Russian dancer Anna Pavlova, caught in a moment of graceful, weightless movement ...

[citation needed] Pavlova appears as a character, played by Maria Tallchief, in the 1952 film Million Dollar Mermaid.

[42] In 1980, Igor Carl Faberge licensed a collection of 8-inch full-lead crystal wine glasses to commemorate the centenary of Pavlova's birth.

[43] Pavlova appears as a character in the fourth episode of the British series Mr Selfridge (2013), played by real-life ballerina Natalia Kremen.