Tchinarova Tamara

About

Born Tamara Rekemchuk (1919-2017). Her maternal grandfather, Kristapor Chinaryan, was an Armenian landowner who survived the Hamidian massacres carried out by the Ottoman Empire. In 1895, Chinaryan fled to Bessarabia, where he adopted the Russified surname Chinarov. He married a Ukrainian woman and eventually became prosperous, owning three vineyards, three houses, and a hotel. Her grandfather, she wrote, "would have succeeded in business even on a desert island. He was practical, quick-witted, responsive, generous, envied, and loved." During the Kishinev pogrom, he sheltered Jewish families in his basements. At the age of 10, Tchinarova began training in Paris with the renowned ballet mistress Olga Preobrazhenskaya, a former dancer with the Russian Imperial Ballet. In 1931, while still twelve years old, she toured Algeria and Morocco, where she was billed as "the world's youngest ballerina." In 1932, she performed in her native Romania, including a show in her hometown. Roma musicians accompanied the tour, and Tchinarova learned complex Gypsy dances, which she later used in Petrushka and other ballets. Following the death of the famous impresario of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, a number of successor ballet companies were formed in Europe. These included the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, Les Ballets 1933, and Colonel Vassili de Basil's Original Ballet Russe. Still in her teens, Tchinarova joined all of these companies. In 1932, she joined the Balet Russe de Monte Carlo company and gained rapid recognition. Tchinarova and her classmates, Irina Baronova, with whom she immediately became friends, Tatiana Riabouchinska, and Tamara Toumanova were nicknamed Balanchine's "Baby Ballerinas" and known as "The Russian [ballerinas] who never danced in Russia." In 1936, Chiranova toured Australia with de Basil's Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. During the same tour, she was delighted when the critic, Arnold Haskell, described her performance in Léonide Massine's ballet Les Présages as "brilliant" and "remarkable." Two years later, in 1938, accompanied by her mother, she returned to Australia with another of de Basil's companies, the Covent Garden Russian Ballet. She was admired for her portrayal of Queen Thamar of Georgia, a character in Michel Fokine's dramatic ballet Thamar. She was also praised for her performances in semi-character roles, such as in "Le Beau Danube." In 1939, at the conclusion of the Ballets Russes' Covent Garden tour, Chinarova and her mother, along with a number of colleagues, opted to remain in Australia. Chinarova taught at the Frances Scully Dancing School, while her mother worked in a factory, sewing women's underwear, later progressing to making ballet costumes. In 1941, Chinarova was asked to join the Kirsova Ballet, founded by the Danish Helene Kirsova, a former dancer with de Basil's touring companies. For Chinarova, Kirsova created a number of roles, including that of Satan in Kirsova's three-act production of Faust, which premiered in November of that year. Throughout the 1940s, Tamara Chinarova's contribution to the developing new Australian ballet companies was very significant. These ballet companies included the Polish-Australian Ballet and the Borovansky Ballet. During her time with the latter, Tamara was not only the principal dancer but, supplementing Edouard Borovansky's poor recall of details, she contributed most to the restaging with him of various ballets such as Carnaval, Scheherazade and Le Beau Danube from the Ballets Russes repertoire. After the end of the ballet season with the Borovansky Company, in 1946, Tchinarova danced in two musical productions, The Dancing Years and Gay Rosalinda. In 1948, she moved to London with her husband, actor Peter Finch. Her devoted mother also moved to London, where she died in 1979.