Vaganova Ballet Academy

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Rossi Street, Saint Petersburg , Vaganova Ballet Academy is in the right building

The Vaganova Ballet Academy ( Russian Академия русского балета им. А. Я. Вагановой ) is the ballet school of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater and the Kirov Ballet . It is one of the most famous and influential ballet schools in the world.

history

Tsarina Anna Ivanovna
Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova

The school was founded on May 4, 1738 by Tsarina Anna Ivanovna as the Imperial Theater School . The French ballet master Jean-Baptiste Lande was the first headmaster. The first students, twelve boys and twelve girls, were taught in the Hermitage . The Tsarina's aim was to form Russia's first professional dance company, the Imperial Russian Ballet , the forerunner of today's Kirov Ballet. Almost all of the teachers employed at the school came from Western Europe. The most famous among them were Enrico Cecchetti , Pierina Legnani and Marius Petipa .

Since 1836 the school has been located on Rossi Street, St. Petersburg. In the course of the Russian Revolution in 1917 , the school was dissolved by the Russian government and reopened as the Leningrad State Choreography School .

Probably the most influential teacher at the school was the ballerina Agrippina Vaganova . She began as a teacher in 1920 and became the head of the Leningrad Choreographic Institute in 1934 . She is the founder of the Waganowa method .

In 1956, six years after Vaganova's death, the school was renamed the Vaganova Ballet Academy in her honor .

present

The current headmaster of the Vaganova Ballet Academy is Nikolay Tsiskaridze , the former prima ballerina of the Kirov Ballet Zhanna Ayupova is the artistic director.

The students of the Vaganova Ballet Academy must pass strict entrance exams before they are accepted, during which physical aptitude, musicality and aptitude for movement are tested. Well over 3000 children aged 10 and over apply annually, 60 of whom are accepted. Of these, around 25 students ultimately pass the graduate examination after 8 years of training.

At the end of their training, the final year students dance a gala performance. The best students get a contract with the Mariinsky Theater.

Graduates

Ballet class at the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theater School, 1891

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