
Filmed in slow motion, Tamara Toumanova, wearing a green and black swimsuit, performs a series of leaps and poses on the sand at Bungan Beach. Summary by Poppy de Souza.
See more incredible footage from Ewan Murray-Will's home movies in the Ballet Russes collection.
Toumanova toured to Australia on the Ballets Russes third tour, so this footage was probably shot between 1939 and 1940. Toumanova’s beauty and dark features led British critic Arnold Haskell to call her the ‘black pearl’ of Russian ballet. She can also be seen in black-and-white footage in Ballets Russes Can No 9.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.