This reminds me of a really genuine mishap I had when dancing at a small cinema in Riga with Tania Raievska, Liev Fokine's wife. We were appearing in duets and solos. I had only been at the Opera school a few months. The small stage had a decided rake and as I took enormous preparation for a pirouette I didn't realise I was so close to the orchestra pit. In the middle of the pirouette I seemed to feel myself getting nearer and nearer the footlights, so I took a tremendous leap right over the orchestra into the front stalls! I was extremely lucky not to hit anything or anybody, and the applause was thunderous. The manager offered my double salary to repeat the leap every night, but I wasn't keen on risking my neck in this way. Soon all the Opera knew about the famous leap, and my friends swore I had done it as a trick to get applause.
Ballet Crusade by Valentin Zeglovsky. 1944. Page 57.
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