Vaganova Ballet Academy survives in good form

Dance Magazine, June, 1998 by Marian Horosko

Students from the world-famous Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, joined by several members of the Kirov Ballet, performed February 25 to 28 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The school opened the program with students in concert demonstrating junior, intermediate, and senior class levels, followed by a performance of excerpts from standard Russian classics.

The academy, government-supported since 1738, has survived dramatic and explosive periods of Russian history, from invasions and revolutions to glasnost.

During that time, the school methodology has absorbed the technical virtuosity of the Italians, the romanticism of the French, the precision of the Danes, and added its own Russian soul. The method, studied as an eight-year course beginning at age ten, was standardized by Agrippina Vaganova in 1934. The school has produced stars of unprecedented magnitude--Pavlova, Nijinsky, Karsavina, Nureyev. Today the question is, can the methodology incorporate and distill the acrobatics and excesses seen in some contemporary choreography (and that has already entered their classrooms), without losing its signature elements--elegance, refinement, musicality, and technical strength--the "school?"

The first appearance in America of students of the Vaganova Ballet Academy, then known as the Kirov Ballet Academy, was in 1990 during a three-week tour of Ohio. Arriving with the euphoria of glasnost, the young group experienced an exuberant American Fourth of July and the rewards of a commercial society. Under the direction of Konstantin Sergeyev and Natalia Dudinskaya, the young dancers astounded the sold-out houses.

The recent school visit, under the artistic direction of Igor Belski and engineered by VBA director Leonid L. Nadirov, project director David Eden, and BAM, was a shorter stay with a lesser audience (no reflection on the group), and raised some disturbing questions. Nadirov admits that the school could gain income from appearances in other countries, but, he says, "that means time away from the education of the students. And that is our first concern. Education, education, education. That means the senior class must enter the professional world knowing how to behave as young artists in any society, how to approach new works with an open, respectful, and inquiring intelligence, and be able to reach their potential anywhere in the world. The money doesn't interest me that much."

In the past few years, Nadirov has been engaged in securing copyright protection for the name Vaganova against those who would illegally use that name and indicate that they teach the method. (Not all performers who attend the school are graduates of the teaching course.) He is also involved in copyright protection from the pirating and deception of fraudulent versions of classical Russian ballets.

This June VBA celebrates its fourth Vaganova Prix, a competition for young dancers that has brought greater recognition to the school, its teacher training, and performances at the Maryinsky Theatre by the school and the Kirov Ballet, of which the academy is the official affiliate.

While VBA has maintained its high teaching standard in the lower grades, corrosion of the methodology in the higher grades has entered the classroom. Although it is difficult to keep talented and well-schooled adolescents from imitating highly stylized and possibly injurious contemporary choreographic trends, it takes discipline to keep their basics in place every day before the move to the professional stage. "We have some lazy-bones teachers," Nadirov admits. "Technique is sport. Acrobatics. Vaganova herself repeated often enough that technique was secondary and understanding the quality, the line, the musicality, and the harmony of each movement was first. Our students see television and videos and they experiment with the choreography that they see."

A VBA teenager sitting near Nadirov during his interview was asked about nonclassical positions and movements in the classroom. His response was that he has seen videos of Carlos Acosta (Cubantrained Houston Ballet principal now joining Royal Ballet) and, because Acosta is his idol, he tries to imitate him.

"But that is not necessary," Nadirov explains. "It is artificial and not cultivated by us. If our students have a classic education, they will be able to do anything, anywhere, at any future time. Dudinskaya [VBA's famous coach and former Kirov ballerina] keeps saying that to get your leg up to your ear contains no emotion that is consistent with ballet."