Thamara de Swirsky explained

Thamara de Swirsky (October 17, 1888 — December 24, 1961), sometimes seen as Tamara de Svirsky, Thamara Swirskaya, or Countess de Swirsky, was a Russian-born dancer, known for dancing barefoot.

Early life

Thamara de Swirsky was born in St. Petersburg[1] into a prosperous Russian family. She studied piano in Paris and Munich, and dance in St. Petersburg.[2]

Her claim on the title "Countess" was disputed. Her mother, Zenaide de Podwissotski, may have been a medical doctor in Paris before accompanying Thamara to the United States.[3]

Career

De Swirsky, publicized in 1911 as having the "most musical body in the world",[4] "created a sensation" in the United States with her barefoot dancing.[5] Reviewers assured (or warned) readers that, while her feet were bare, she did not dance nude.[6] "Her costumes are triumphs of sartorial amplitude," declared one disappointed critic. "They leave everything to the imagination."[7] She also performed a "bat dance" with billowing sheer fabric wings.[8] [9] She was the last advertised performer to appear at the Coliseum Garden Theatre in Raton, New Mexico, before it was destroyed in a 1911 fire.[10]

Thamara de Swirsky also played piano as part of some of her performances.[11] "Her style of dancing is her own," explained one Los Angeles reporter.[12] Beyond the vaudeville stage, at the Metropolitan Opera[13] she appeared as a dancer in Orfeo ed Euridice and Zar und Zimmermann, both in 1909.[14] In January 1910 she danced in Delibes' Lakmé with the Boston Opera, at English's Opera House.[15] In 1912 she performed a version of her dances in a short silent film[16] for Independent Moving Pictures.[17] In 1913 she was part of an advertising campaign for Seduction perfume.[18]

Her opinions, whims, and demands made news.[19] She smoked cigars and cigarettes.[20] She was said to have insured each of her toes for $10,000 in 1910.[21] In 1914, she was a member of Anna Pavlova's company, and her pleas for a more humid New York hotel room were reported in the New York Times.[22] Italian artist Piero Tozzi painted a portrait of de Swirsky, titled "His Flame of Life", when she turned away his romantic interest.[23] [24]

During World War I she performed in New York, combining dance and "dramatic art".[25] In 1919 she appeared in a silent film, The Mad Woman, made by the Stage Women's War Relief Fund.[26] [27]

In 1910, John Jacob Astor bought 25 seats for one of her concerts in Newport, Rhode Island, and sat by himself in the center to watch her performance.[28]

Personal life

In 1933 there were reports that Swirskaya was engaged to marry twice-widowed New York lawyer Frederick G. Fischer and that his family committed him to an asylum to prevent the match.[29] [30]

Thamara de Swirsky professed particular love for Los Angeles as early as 1910, recalling that "I knew when I first touched foot to your soil that here I would find the warmth and the glow which would call out the best that is in me."[31] She settled in Los Angeles after her dance career; she taught and played piano for a living. She died there in 1961, weeks after she was badly injured in a traffic accident during a storm,[32] aged 73 years.[33]

There is a statuette of Thamara de Swirsky in a dance pose, by Paolo Troubetzkoy, in the collection of the Getty Museum. Her unpublished memoirs have also been discovered in recent years.[34]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Harry Prescott Hanaford, Dixie Hines, eds. Who's who in Music and Drama (H. P. Hanaford 1914): 95.
  2. [Rudolph Aronson]
  3. https://books.google.com/books?id=TfxHAQAAMAAJ&dq=Countess+de+Swirsky&pg=PA101 "Is She Really a Russian Noble?"
  4. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bin/colorado?a=d&d=MDP19110504-01.2.24# "Countess Who Has Most Musical Body in World"
  5. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19101113.2.136.49 "Thamara de Swirsky, Russian Countess Who Will Appear in Novel Barefoot Dance in Auditorium"
  6. Andrew L. Erdman, Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895–1915 (McFarland 2007): 104.
  7. Edward F. O'Day, "Thamara de Swirsky Disappointed" San Francisco Daily Times (November 12, 1910): 8.
  8. Shaemas O'Sheel, "On with the Dance" Forum (February 1911): 195.
  9. Hrabina Thamara de Swirsky (1888-1961), tancerka, tańcząca "Fledermauss valse" (ujęcie całej postaci), Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie.
  10. F. Stanley, The Grant That Maxwell Bought (Sunstone Press 2008): 169.
  11. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/501852452/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/1 "De Swirsky Seen in Dances"
  12. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/159630056/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/2 "Tantalizing Thamara"
  13. George Dorris, "Dance and the New York Opera War, 1906-1912" Dance Chronicle 32(2)(2009): 210.
  14. Gerald Fitzgerald, ed., Annals of the Metropolitan Opera: The Complete Chronicle of Performances and Artists (Springer 2016): 224/4C.
  15. https://books.google.com/books?id=06ABAAAAYAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=PA67 "Thamara de Swirsky, the Unadorned Russian Dancer"
  16. https://www.celebri.com/movie/classical-dances-by-countess-thamara-de-swirsky/1912/1322286/ Classical Dances by Countess Thamara de Swirsky
  17. https://books.google.com/books?id=fCRJAQAAMAAJ&dq=Thamara+de+Swirsky&pg=RA7-PA25 "Notes of the Week"
  18. Verbinina, "Ads for Séduction perfume by Gellé frères (part 2)" Verbinina (July 3, 2014).
  19. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12030625/thamara_de_swirsky_on_american_women/ "Frown Too Much and Wear Corsets"
  20. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12030781/the_knave_july_1912/ "The Knave"
  21. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/159506009/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/3 "Each Pink Toe, Ten Thousand Dollars"
  22. http://search.proquest.com/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/97671603/AA5A789221E246BFPQ/3 "Asked for Damp Room"
  23. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/159537901/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/5 "Eyes Show Russia's Sorrow"
  24. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/159543404/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/6 "Will Countess Wed Painter?"
  25. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12033879/thamara_swirskaya_1918/ "Thamara Swirskaya to Dance on Thursday"
  26. https://books.google.com/books?id=EuFNAQAAMAAJ&dq=Stage+Women%27s+War+Relief+Swirskaya&pg=PA183 "When Broadway Favorites Saw Themselves as Others See Them"
  27. Margaret McIvor-Tyndall, "What Women of the Theatre are Doing for Uncle Sam" National Service (May 1919): 285.
  28. https://www.newspapers.com/image/138912360/ "Countess de Swirsky Tells Marguerite Martyn," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23, 1911, image 1
  29. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/12034260/thamara_swirskaya_engaged_1933/ "Aids Lawyer Fiance"
  30. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/502013376/A205B32F5F744B0BPQ/1 "Dragged the Rich, Aristocratic Old Lawyer to an Asylum as He Was to Wed the 'Perfect Body' Danseuse"
  31. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/159543027/3611DDA57DA34897PQ/4 "Passion of Art Drives Her On"
  32. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/168041972/A205B32F5F744B0BPQ/19 "Storm Figures in 7 Deaths, 200 Accidents"
  33. http://search.proquest.com/news/docview/168035880/A205B32F5F744B0BPQ/7 "Rites Planned for Tamara Swirskaya"
  34. Anne-Lise Desmas, "The Dancer Statuette by Paolo Troubetzkoy and the Incredible Life of Countess Thamara Swirskaya" Getty Center (February 2, 2014).

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