Bénédicte Windsor ballet teacher and founder of the centre Artys (Annecy, France) has visited the Vaganova Ballet Academy today to meet Professor Marina Vasilieva who was a pedagogue of Léa Thomasson at the Academy (Bénédicte Windsor was one of the teachers of Lea Thomasson in France). Léa has completed her training program for International students at the Academy this summer and got an invitation to join the Mariinsky Ballet. Now she can be seen on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre.
Bénédicte Windsor with Marina Vasilieva and her students (7/II).
Photo by V. Vasiliev.
Every year students from all around the world arrive at Vaganova Ballet Academy to study on the International Trainee program. Fourteen trainees of the Academy got certificates in 2017, some of them were invited to join Russian theatres. For example, Alexander Lewis Blend has joined Yacobson Ballet Theatre; Lea Thomasson (France) and Raul Ferreira (Spain) was invited by Mariinsky theatre; Oscar Frame (Great Britain) - by Moscow Bolshoi theatre.
In his interview for melmoth.co Oscar Frame told: 'The invitation from the Bolshoi was quite overwhelming. Graduating and getting job offers had been something I had thought about and imagined for so long that I couldn’t quite believe it was real. Then, when I had offers from other companies as well, I just had a sudden sense of vertigo. I talked to my parents who just told me to trust Nikolai. They said that he was responsible for the biggest improvement in my dancing in five years and he is my pedagogue, so I should listen to him. It was difficult because I have a huge respect and love for the Mariinsky, most of my dearest teachers are former Mariinsky dancers and most of my best friends were accepting offers there.'
In a new academic year Academy accepted to the International Trainee program 21 students from Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, and Japan. 14 students are continuing their programs for the second year, 8 students are studying in the Academy for the third year and two boys - the fourth year in a row.
Raul Ferreira and Saya Okamoto (Japan).
Lea Thomasson and Oscar Frame.
Photos by V. Vasiliev and S. Avakuum.
'Dancing times' published an article about the Vaganova Ballet Academy graduation performances at the Mariinsky Theatre by Igor Stupnikov in its September issue.
On the Day of Knowledge, the 1st of September, a Consul-General of Japan in Saint Petersburg, Mr. Masanori Fukushima, visited the celebration ceremony in Vaganova Ballet Academy. He handed the Certificate “for rendering assistance on the development of relations between Japan and Russian Federation in the cultural field” over to the Principal of the Academy, Nikolay Maksimovich Tsiskaridze.
Vaganova Ballet Academy is actively cooperating with Japan accepting Japanese trainees to the International Trainee Program, including following the auditions, which held each year from 1995 together with the Tochigi Prefecture. At this year about twenty Japanese students study among the 400 students of the Academy.
How notes in the General Consulate of Japan in Saint Petersburg, Academy is contributing to cooperation and friendship between Japan and Russia in the field of ballet and upgrading the skills of Japanese ballet artists through the educational activities.
On the 1st of September, the First Bell was rung in the Vaganova Ballet Academy for new students, who will start study at this year. Principal Nikolay Tsiskaridze and Artistic director Zhanna Ayupova welcomed guests in the Academy’s yard near the Ulanova sculpture. As senior students of the graduate class Maria Khoreva and Petr Attikov performed by a speech to the first-graders.
The right to give the first bell to start the new academic year was entrusted to a student of the graduate class Aleksandr Volodin and one of the new students.
First-graders get acquainted with the building of the Academy and its history. In the Day of Knowledge for students of the Academy was held a lesson of ecology “An amazing greenhouse or floral motifs on the ballet stage”.
In this year to the level 1 of the Vaganova Ballet Academy was accepted 80 students, 70 of them will study in Saint Petersburg, 10 - in the branch of the Academy in Vladivostok. Also to the middle and high levels of the Academy was successfully passed an audition 14 students. 20 students from different countries all around the world start to study as an International Trainees as well, they join to 25 students, which continue their programs for the second, third and even fourth year in a row.
Photos by V. Vasiliev.
On the 16th of July on press-breakfast Nikolay Tsiskaridze told about Vaganova Ballet Academy participation in the international project of the Ministry of culture of Russian Federation “Russian seasons”, which was started on the 4th of June.
Vaganova Ballet Academy is well-known in Japan, where every year teachers of the Academy give master-classes and there at the last year tour of the Academy with the ballet “Nutcracker” was held with a big success. And furthermore, the Academy always has a lot of students from Japan on the International Trainee Program.
“Japanese people very love a classical ballet and they have a lot of choreographic schools in Japan. It is common knowledge. But at the last times quality of Japanese students changed a lot, at the time, when I have been seeing Japan, they became taller, and very talented to ballet children grew up”, - told Nikolay Maksimovich
At the time of festival “Russian seasons”, which is taking place in Japan now, teachers will give a master-classes again, how Principal of the Academy informed us. Master-classes will take place in different cities (Tokyo, Nara, Osaka) from 13th of July till 27th of August. In a trainee program of events will participate teachers: professor of classical and pas-de-deux dance department L.V.Kovaleva, teachers of classical and pas-de-deux dance department A.V.Ilin, T.V.Solomyanko, M.A.Gribanova, G.P.Bashlovkina, assistant professors of character, historical, modern dance and acting skills department A.A.Stepin and V.A.Sirotin; teacher of character, historical, modern dance and acting skills department L.G.Postigeva. One of the master-classes will be given by Nikolay Tsiskaridze (19th of July): “I will teach the class. There will be ballet artists, Japanese children and our children, as a public there will be management of theatres and teachers with different qualifications”.
In addition, students of the Academy will perform a suite from Josef Bayer ballet “Fairy doll” on Gala in New Tokyo theatre on the 22nd of July.
The photo was provided by organizing committee of “Russian seasons” project.
Nikolay Tsiskaridze, Principal of the Vaganova Ballet Academy was elected as President of Britain Legat Foundation, with which Academy bound by successful creative projects, including the ballet ‘’Fairy Doll’’.
At the end of January upon the invitation of the Foundation, Nikolay Tsiskaridze attended an event in honor the 80th anniversary of Nikolay Gustavovich Legat death, where he presented the impacts of Legat on classical dance in Russia. The event was held in Colet House, where a studio of Nikolay Legat was situated. It was his home and place, where he taught a classical dance until the end of his lifetime.
The celebration evening ‘’Teachers and students. The relay of the stars’’ was presented at the Bolshoi theatre, where students of the Academy was participated - Eleonora Sevenard, Pavel Mikheev and Oscar Frame. They performed the Pas de trois from the ballet ‘’Fairy doll’’. They performed the Pas de trois from the ballet ‘’Fairy doll’’.
Oscar Frame, Eleonora Sevenard, Nikolai Tsiskaridze and Pavel Mikheev near the Bolshoi Thatre.
Ballet-master faculty was founded 70 years ago, in autumn of 1946, as a part of the directing faculty of RUTA. Founder and head of the faculty was Rostislav Zaharov, one of the founders of the Soviet Union ballet direction ‘’choreodrama’’. Today head of the faculty is a People’s artist of the Soviet Union, artistic director of ‘’Russian ballet’’ company Vyacheslav Gordeev.
On 12 March The Russian Ballet Icons Gala 2017 was performed on the stage of London Colliseum, where students of the Vaganova Ballet Academy were participated.
They performed piece from ballet The Fairy Doll on music by Joseph Bayer, reconstructed in the past year by Nikolay Tsiskaridze for students of Academy. Following the press feedback, people, who came at Sunday evening concert dedicated to heritage of Diaghilev “Russian seasons”, were impressed by the performance.
Our school was presented by Principal of Academy Nikolay Tsiskaridze together with Vlada Borodulina, Polina Bualova, Aleksandra Korshunova, Pavel Mikheev, Eleonora Sevenard, Oscar Frame, Aleksandra Khiteeva, classical dance teacher Tatiana Solomyanko, who gave a workshop for students of National Ballet School.
The Russian Ballet Icons Gala, organized by company Ensemble Production, is held in London every year since 2006. Programs of each concert are full with the names of rising stars and famous dancers, among which are soloists of the best ballet companies of world, including Bolshoi, Mariinsky, Mikhailovsky theatres, Grand Opera de Paris,Berlin Staatsoper and Monte Carlo ballets, the Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and New York City Ballet.
"Senior students from the Vaganova Academy in St Petersburg performed a divertissement from The Fairy Doll, choreographed by the Legat brothers in 1903. Nikolay Tsiskaridze, director of the school since 2014, has adapted the choreography for seven of the pupils. The highlight was the pas de trois for The Fairy Doll and two Pierrots: Eleanora Sevenard (class of T.A Udalenkova), with Oscar Frame and Pavel Mikheev (both class of Tsiskaridze). The divert. certainly deserved its place in the gala: the confident students already seem fully fledged for professional employment." (Jann Parry, DanceTabs on March 17).
