Tamara Geva

Tamara Geva (Russian: Тамара Жева, born Tamara Levkievna Zheverzheeva, Russian: Тамара Левкиевна Жевержеева; 17 March 1906 – 9 December 1997) was a Soviet and later an American actress, ballet dancer, and choreographer. She was the daughter of art patron and collector Levkiy Gevergeyev ^[ru] and she was the first wife of the well-known ballet dancer and choreographer George Balanchine.

Throughout her life she danced with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, danced with husband George Balanchine, and performed in and choreographed many notable Broadway shows as well as Hollywood movies.

Tamara Geverzheeva was born in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire on March 17, 1906. Geva's mother Tamara Urtahl was an actress, while her father Levkiy Gevergeyev ^[ru] was a passionate collector and art enthusiast.

Levkiy Gevergeyev was known as a freethinker. He sponsored Russian avant-garde artists and their projects through his enthusiasm for artistry. Geva described her mother, Tamara Urthal, as a beautiful but selfish woman. Her parents were unable to marry until their daughter was six years old. As a child, she lived in a huge 19th-century house (Ivan Zheverzheev's house at Rubinstein Street, 18) which had an extensive art, book and theater collection as well as a miniature theater all organized by her father and his years of collecting such artifacts. Her father had agents all over who found art, writings, and artifacts from a variety of well-known artists to add to his massive collection. Geva has said that this collection was her father's most prized possession. After his death, his extensive theatre memorabilia collection was put into an exhibit at Saint Petersburg State Museum of Theater and Music ^[ru].

Geva grew up in the midst of the Bolshevik Revolution where she experienced true hardships in her youth. Her father's fortune was taken away by the Bolsheviks, sometimes they struggled to find food and lived on a verge of starvation.

Geva fell in love with ballet when she was taken by her father in Mariinsky Theatre and saw La Esmeralda danced by Mathilde Kschessinska. However open-minded, her parents forbade Geva to go to ballet school. Still, she was allowed to take private lessons.

At age 13 Geva began to attend evening dance classes at the St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre School, when it began to accept older students shortly after the revolution. Her teachers were Evgenia Sokolova and Alexander ^[ru] & Ivan Chekrygin ^[ru]. It was here that she met dancer and choreographer George Balanchine, who at the time was the teacher for the ballroom dance classes. She and Balanchine became close very soon, and he began choreographing pieces for them both. One of the first things they did was La Nuit to Anton Rubinstein's Romance in E-flat.

Geva and Balanchine began appearing together professionally in ballet concerts. From 1921, Balanchine managed his own company The Young Ballet. Though stuffed with promising and talented dancers, the company struggled in Soviet Russia. Tamara married Balanchine in 1924, when she was 17 years old. According to the family legend, the parents agreed on this marriage when Balanchine played Wagner to Levkiy, who adored this composer.