Russian Ballet

[ATaylor]

Hi! I am new to this site....does anyone know how an American dancer can get accepted to a Russian ballet school or theatre, such as the Kirov, Vaganova, or Bolshoi? I heard that you can just send in a video and your info, but is there anything else? Such as competitions, certain schools, open classes/master classes with teachers and/or students from over there, etc? Thanks!

[Mel Johnson]

Hi, ATaylor and welcome to Ballet Talk for Dancers.

 

Never having trained at the Russian major schools (incidentally, "Kirov" and "Vaganova" i.e., Vaganova Choreographic Institute are one and the same), I can, nonetheless, report on general trends in non-Russian students studying at Petersburg or Moscow. It used to be that a foreign student had to have a "champion" from either the school or the company/ies to put in a good word at selection. Now, there is a program run by the Russian American Foundation which supplies the "champion" and begins the filtering process for the schools. Here's an article which gives good input on what American students at the Bolshoi are doing.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/arts/dan...lshoi.html?_r=1