Australia Dancing - Spessivtseva, Olga (1895

Spessivtseva, Olga (1895 - 1991)

Lynkushka, Angela,: Meryl Tankard with projected images of Olga Spessivtseva in a performance of 'Two Feet', 1993

Born in Rostov, Olga Spessivtseva trained at the Imperial Ballet school in St Petersburg, graduating in 1913. Later studying under Ekaterina Vazem and Agrippina Vaganova, she danced with the Maryinsky Theatre as a soloist from 1916 and ballerina from 1918 and was a ballerina with the Ballet de l'Opera, Paris, from 1924 to 1932. She appeared intermittently with the Diaghilev Ballets Russes in the United States, London, Monte Carlo and Paris, notably dancing Princess Aurora in Diaghilev's 1921 landmark production of the Sleeping Princess and creating the title role in Balanchine's La Chatte in 1927. In 1931 she performed in Buenos Aires under the direction of Michel Fokine, and in 1932 with the Camargo Society, London, where she was partnered by Anton Dolin in Giselle.

Spessivtseva came to Australia in 1934 as a star drawcard of the Dandre-Levitoff Russian Ballet Australian tour for which she was billed as Olga Spessiva. Her opening night performance in the lead role of Swan Lake Act II, partnered by Anatole Vilzak, was described in Brisbane's Courier Mail as 'the embodiment of poetic thought in illustrative movement'. Her performance as Columbine in the Australian premiere of Le Carnaval was similarly acclaimed. As the tour progressed, however, Spessivtseva's health deteriorated. She consequently missed a number of Sydney performances and did not appear in the Melbourne and Perth seasons. Her final Australian performance as Columbine in Le Carnaval for the company's closing Sydney performance on 28 November 1934 was one of her last public appearances.

In 1939 Spessivtseva settled in America, where she was advisor to Ballet Theatre New York until 1943 when she suffered a mental breakdown. In 1963 she moved to a Russian settlement at Nyack outside New York.

Meryl Tankard based her 1988 solo work Two Feet in part on Spessivtseva's mental health issues. Two Feet used two characters, Spessivtseva and Mepsie, a semi-autobiographical figure, to explore the obsessive perfectionism of dancers.

Bibliography:

Edward H. Pask, Enter the colonies dancing: a history of dance in Australia 1835-1940 (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1979)

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