bohemea:

Until I was eight I never dreamed what dancing could mean. My mother saved up enough money to buy us tickets for the upper balcony at the Maryinsky Theatre. I’d never before been to a theatre.

When we set out for the Maryinsky the snow that had just fallen glistened in the reflection of the street lights, and our sleigh slid noiselessly over the frozen streets. Seated beside my mother, her arm around my waist, I was suffused with happiness.

‘You are going to see the country of the fairies,’ she said as we were drawn rapidly through the night toward the unknown, mysterious thing which was the theatre.

The ballet was the Sleeping Beauty with Tchaikovsky’s enchanting music. From the first measures of the orchestra I became very grave and began to tremble, troubled for the first time by the thrill of the beautiful.

- Anna Pavlova