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Participating Schools

  • The Vaganova State Ballet Academy
  • The Moscow State Ballet Academy
  • The Novosibirsk State Ballet College
The Vaganova State Ballet Academy

The Vaganova State Ballet Academy is the first Russian professional ballet school initiated by the ballet master and choreographer Jean Baptiste Landet on 4 May 1738. The Academy has borne the name of Agrippina Vaganova since 1957 to commemorate her contribution into development of ballet pedagogic. 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 of ballet technique. Her technique is one of the most popular techniques today. Her teaching combined the elegant, refined style of the Imperial Ballet with more vigorous dancing developed later. Famous graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy include many who achieved international recognition: Marina Semyonova, Galina Ulanova, Konstantin Sergeyev, Tatiana Vecheslova, Natalia Dudinskaya, Alla Shelest, Irina Kolpakova, Galina Mezentseva, Askold Makarov, Yury Solovyov, Farukh Ruzimatov, Yulia Makhalina, Uliana Lopatkina, and Diana Vishneva, among many others.

The Moscow State Ballet Academy

The Moscow StateBallet Academy, commonly known as The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, wasfounded as an orphanage by order of Catherine II in 1773. The original name of the Academy was The Classes of Fine Arts and Dancing.
The Moscow State Academy of Choreographyholds annual auditions for the students seeking acceptance into the full-time programs of traineeship and vocational training. Among the directors of the Academy there were the great masters of the Bolshoi Theatre: Nikolay Tarasov, Rostislav Zakharov, Leonid Lavrovsky, Mikhail Gabovich, Yury Kondratov, Sofia Golovkina.
Famous graduates of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography include Maya Plisetskaya, Ekaterina Maximova, Vladimir Vasiliev, Maris Liepa, Mikhail Lavrovsky, Svetlana Lunkina, Dmitry Rudakov, Nadezhda Gracheva, Galina Stepanenko, Vladimir Malakhov, Nikolay Tsiskaridze, Natalia Osipova, Maria Alexandrova, Dmitry Gudanov, and Sergey Filin.

The Novosibirsk State Ballet College

The Novosibirsk State Ballet College was founded by order of the Ministry of Culture in 1956 as a ballet school for the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre. The Novosibirsk State Ballet College is the largest professional ballet school behind the Ural Mountains. The pedagogic system of the college is based on the Moscow and Leningrad ballet school traditions. The graduates of the college work both in Russia and abroad: L.Gershunova, A.Berdyshev, L.Matyukhina, A.Balabanov, T.Kladnichkina, V.Ryabov, L.Kondrashov. L.Popilina, E.Graschenko, A.Zharova, L.Zaytseva, S.Chudin.