- Agrippina Vaganova
Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova ( _ru. Агриппина Яковлевна Ваганова) (
July 6 1879 -November 5 1951 ) was an outstandingRussia nballet teacher who developed theVaganova method - the technique which derived from the teaching methods of the old "Imperial Ballet School " (today the "Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet") under the "Premier Maître de Ballet"Marius Petipa throughout the mid to late 19th century, though mostly throughout the 1880s and 1890s. It was Vaganova who perfected and cultivated this form of teaching the art of classical ballet into a workable syllabus. Her "Fundamentals of the Classical Dance" (1934) remains a standard textbook for the instruction ofballet technique .Vaganova's whole life was connected with the
Imperial Ballet (later the Kirov Ballet) of theMariinsky Theatre inSaint Petersburg . She was accepted into theImperial Ballet School in 1888, the great institution of classical dance founded byAnna of Russia and funded by theTsar s. She graduated from the "Classe de Perfection" of the former "Prima Ballerina"Eugeniia Sokolova (she was also trained byEkaterina Vazem ,Enrico Cecchetti ,Christian Johansson , andPavel Gerdt ).Ballet did not come easily to Vaganova in her first years as a student, but slowly, through the efforts of her own will power, she was able to join the illustrious
Imperial Ballet upon her graduation. By the time she attained the rank of soloist, Saint Petersburg balletomanes dubbed her "queen of variations", for her unlimited virtuosity and level of technique.The old Maestro Petipa cared little for Vaganova as a dancer — any mention of her performances in his diaries were usually followed by such comments as "awful" or "dreadful". But Petipa was notorious for offhand remarks about the greatest dancers of his time, including the prima ballerina assuluta,
Mathilde Kschessinska , who he thought "rotten", "spiteful", and a "nasty swine". [http://books.google.com/books?id=7gIDy6ait3IC&pg=PA22&dq=vaganova+petipa+dreadful&as_brr=0&sig=ACfU3U0Am4uGVzSvMGk3vdmom7QF1lsHpQ] In 1915 the Ballet MasterNikolai Legat cast Vaganova as the Goddess Niriti in his revival of Petipa's 1889 grand ballet "The Talisman". Vaganova's portrayal was a great success, and won her promotion to the rank of "Prima". Nevertheless, she chose to retire one year later to concentrate on teaching.In 1916 Vaganova began teaching at the "khortekhnikum", as the Imperial Ballet School was by then known. Though she did have a respectable career as a dancer, her leadership in teaching classical dance was what gave her one of the most respected places in the history of ballet. Her own early struggle with deciphering ballet technique had taught her much. She taught students who would go on to become legends of the dance.
After the Revolution of 1917 the future of ballet in Russia looked grim because of its tradition as court entertainment. Vaganova "fought tooth and nail", as she put it, for the preservation of the legacy of
Marius Petipa and the Imperial Ballet. In 1934 she was appointed director of the "khortekhnikum", the school which now bears her name: TheVaganova Ballet Academy . This is the school that prepares dancers to perform with the Kirov Ballet.Among Vaganova's pupils were the distinguished Soviet ballerinas
Natalia Dudinskaya ,Marina Semenova ,Galina Ulanova , Olga Lepeshinskaya, andMaya Plisetskaya . Her teaching combined the elegant, refined style of the Imperial Ballet which Vaganova had been taught byEnrico Cecchetti with more vigorous dancing developed in theSoviet Union . In 1933, she staged and choreographed the celebrated version of "Swan Lake " with Ulanova as Odette-Odile.Famous graduates of the
Vaganova Ballet Academy include many who achieved international recognition:Ninel Kurgapkina ,Rudolf Nureyev ,Irina Kolpakova ,Mikhail Baryshnikov ,Natalia Makarova ,Yuri Soloviev ,Galina Mezentseva ,Altynai Asylmuratova ,Ulyana Lopatkina ,Diana Vishneva , and Svetlana Zakharova, among many others.External links
* [http://www.vaganova.ru/eng.html Official site of the Vaganova Ballet Academy]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8233165 Agrippina Vaganova's biographic sketch] atFind A Grave
* [http://www.ballerinagallery.com/vaganova.htm The Ballerina Gallery - Agrippina Vaganova]
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