Serafina Astafieva

Russian dancer

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (November 2016) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the Russian article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Астафьева, Серафима Александровна]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|Астафьева, Серафима Александровна}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Serafina Astafieva (Russian: Серафима Александровна Астафьева; 1876 – 13 September 1934) was a Russian dancer and ballet teacher.^[1]

Astafieva was a pupil of the Imperial Ballet School, graduating in 1895. In 1896 she married the famous character dancer Jozef Kshessinsky, brother of the prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya. From 1909-1911 Astafieva performed with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. After retiring from performing she opened the Russian Dancing Academy at The Pheasantry on King's Road in Chelsea, London. Her pupils included Anton Dolin, Margot Fonteyn,^[1] Alicia Markova,^[2] Hermione Darnborough,^[3] Madeleine Vyner,^[4] and Joan Lawson.^[5]

A blue plaque unveiled in 1968 commemorates Astafieva at 152 King's Road in Chelsea.^[6]

She is referenced as "Grishkin" in T. S. Eliot's poem Whispers of Immortality.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Serafina Astafieva.

^ ^a ^b Oxford Dictionary of Dance (2004) Oxford University Press
^ Alicia Markova, Ballerina Known for Giselle, Dies at 94 The New York Times
^ Dancing Times, July 2009
^ Carroll, Mark (2011). The Ballets Russes in Australia and Beyond. Wakefield. p. 261. ISBN 9781862548848.
^ "Joan Lawson Archive". Archives Hub. Retrieved 17 April 2023.
^ "ASTAFIEVA, PRINCESS SERAPHINE (1876-1934)". English Heritage. Retrieved 18 August 2012.