Interview with Hilda Butsova
Hilda Butsova (Interviewee), Elizabeth Kendall (Interviewer)
Disc 1, Jan. 28, 1975 (ca. 49 min.). Hilda Butsova speaks with Elizabeth Kendall about regularly seeing Anna Pavlova dance when she was a child in London; dancing in Anna Pavlova's company including the different types of dancers in the company and the respective roles assigned to them; the lack of variety of the dancers in companies today with the exception of American Ballet Theatre; the circumstances of her joining Pavlova's company, in 1912, and her success there; the practice of assigning Russian stage names to the English dancers; their European tour including a visit to Russia in 1914; performing as an extra dancer in the Ballets russes in 1911; the dancers she saw performing in the Ballets russes including Pavlova, Karsavina, Adolf Bolm, and Nijinsky; an anecdote about Mikhail Mordkin; her early performing experience, in English pantomime; her early interest in dancing; her early dance training and occasional performances including the restrictions imposed by the child labor laws; going to London to study at the Stedmans Academy when she was 11 years old; living with her teacher on a house boat near Hampton Court; her course of study at the Academy; her role as the Oyster Queen in a student production of a ballet based on Alice in Wonderland; the lack of male dancers; being seen by Pavlova at the Academy and subsequently joining her company; the other English dancers in the company [ends abruptly but continues directly on disc 2]
Audiobook on CD, English, 1975