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‘Dancing Into The Unknown’
‘My Life in the Ballets Russes and Beyond’ by Tamara Tchinarova Finch Dance Books 2007 - ISBN 978 1852 731144 Reviewed by Renee Renouf |
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Of all the comparatively recent memoirs about the de Basil Ballets Russes, this one is a standout in terms of objectivity, most particularly relating to details dear to balletomane hearts. I have enjoyed them all, from Sono Osato's Distant Dances to Baronova's Irina. While they eachl conveys aspects of the same story, Finch has managed to convey as much the ambiance and the surroundings as she is regarding her own role and reactions which are outstanding. I read it non-stop from when it was retrieved from the post box until pas midnight, snacks interspersed. Tamara Tchinarova Finch is Armenian on her mother's side, Georgian on her father's; each side she was marked with intrepid parents. As happens with so many de Basil company dancers who trained under the Russian Imperial dancers-turned teachers, her parents came from good or prosperous families directly affected by the 1917 upheaval in Czarist Russia. Finch spent her early years in Romania, a river separating it from Russia. Her stories of the meeting of her parents under wartime conditions, the maternal grandparents' objections, and her summers with them are quite wonderful. The move to Paris, the abject poverty the trio endured. the resourcefulness of her mother, her stay in a convent are equally vivid, along with the agony of her parents' separation. Finch's descriptions of Preobrajenska's classes and Preobrajenska's legendary generosity to students both with classes and arrangements to display her charges are among the best I have read. She makes the hierarchy in ballet classes quite clear. Finch also writes of her teacher's early connections with George Balanchine, from his entry examination to study at the Imperial Ballet School to utilizing him as a partner and his returning the favor in using her students in Ballets 33. Some of the inherited stories of the Imperial Ballet rivalries were new to me. There is a delightful interlude when Tamara and her mother return to Romania, Tamara to present a trio of concerts. A violinist is needed; who to find? Answer: a Romanian gypsy. The concerts wound up with a full-blooded display of gypsy solidarity; out of it, Tamara learned definitively how to shake her shoulders gypsy style. By this time Tamara had decided to dance under her mother's family name. Her memories of the Ballets 33 help convey the early enthusiasm Balanchine engendered in his dancers; it includes descriptions of the ballets and of Tilly Losch, and the gallantry of Losch's husband towards the dancers: a two week vacation on his palatial estate with mamas. The description of the first de Basil tour in Europe helps expand on varying comments about those first seasons, and she makes the ballets in that first Monte Carlo season particularly vivid.She includes an explanation of the first de Basil Ballet Russe tour of Australia, the splinter group formed by Leon Woizikovsky which toured Europe until it was forced to disband, and how the dancers were treated upon returning to de Basil, particularly in terms of roles. The treatment was such that Tamara and her mother decided to remain in Australia in 1939. The means by which they survived were extraordinary. until she began to dance once again, this time with Borovansky. Finch's involvement with Borovansky coincided with the early years of her marriage to the actor Peter Finch. She writes an excellent appraisal of the Australian liquor tradition as she observed it with her husband and his cronies. She also gives a telling account of Vivien Leigh's manic-depressive behavior when filming Elephant Walk forcing her out of the role which then went to Elizabeth Taylor ; this presages pages dealing with the further erosion of the Finch marriage. The story post-Peter Finch is almost as absorbing; she recounts her career as a Russian interpreter, first for business and industry and then for Russian ballet visits and the Royal Ballet abroad. The details reflect how much she had to absorb and convey between the two language groups. Interspersed with this stimulus are her stories relating to her mother's enterprise as a landlady, her mother's mental decline and her final illness. Finch appends to her own history a brief , though insightful, very diplomatic account of Irina Baronova whom she considers her very best friend. Their dancing lives brought them together; after a distance of a decade or so, the world of the theater brought them once more into a contact which has remained constant. It speaks to their closeness and Finch's magnanimity.
Perhaps because Tamara Tcharinova Finch enjoyed such affection from
her maternal grandparents along with her mother's resourceful,
undying support, Tamara early developed powers of observation
and curiosity enabling her to recount lively scenes and situations
with perspective and evident great intelligence. I am so happy that
Dance Books made her memories available.
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