Lidia Ivanova met George Balanchine when they were paired as dancers when they were pre-teens at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Theater School. She died in 1924 in a mysterious boating accident just before her scheduled departure from Russia along with Balanchine, his wife Tamara Geva, and two other dancers. Some call her his "lost muse".



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THE GIRL WHO ISN'T THERE song lyrics
by Joel Sattler

I dance with the girl who waltzes
I dance with her in my dreams
I dance with imagination
or at least that's what it seems

we dance out on the veranda
we dance in the village square
and everyone watches me dancing
with the girl who isn't there

Lidia, my lost muse
Lidia, name that I choose
for whether I lose or win
and for all that might have been
in the night I lie awake
and go over my mistake
in my mind the dance begins
again

there once was a time we were happy
in love and more than in love
when the sun rose out of the mountains
and the sky would go blue as it does

but fall is the cruelest of seasons
and winter takes down every leaf
and memory needs not a reason
to reveal the crime of belief

and women they come and go
and I loved them as much as I would
but I told them and all of them know
at least all of the ones who could

that the girl who waltzes came first
and the girl is bound to be last
I don't mean to dance till it hurts
but there's no escaping the past

Lidia, my lost muse
Lidia, name that I choose
for whether I lose or win
and for all that might have been
in the night I lie awake
and go over my mistake
in my mind the dance begins
again

and so I go spinning through summer
through spring I will tour in the air
revolving around and around
with the girl who isn't there

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