Media - «Ballet, Ballet»: Interview // Odeskі vіstі: newspaper. — 2007. — August 16 (No. 80 (3638)). — p. 13.

Ballet, ballet…

Aleksey FOMKIN, Vice Rector at the Vaganova Ballet Academy of Saint Petersburg, is a big fan of our city. For years, Aleksey has been coming to Odessa on vacation. But having a good time is not the only thing that binds the resident of the Northern Palmyra to the Southern Palmyra.

— The first time I came here was five years ago. I then wanted to find out more about the artist Pyotr Nilus, who is my distant relative. I can’t clearly trace my genealogy because there are few data, but I did manage to gather some information about Pyotr, and I saw his paintings in the art museum. This time I will use my visit as an opportunity to establish connections between our academy and choreographers and teachers of Odessa. We have an academic methodological association that is in charge of education in choreography and unites representatives from educational institutions in Russia and CIS countries. We have set up an advanced training faculty in the academy, and four times a year we deliver workshops for choreographers and teachers. In this way, we offer them methodological guidance that they need, and build contacts between our countries to preserve a common ballet space under the Vaganova school. In Odessa, I got acquainted with Natalya Barysheva, Elvira Karavaeva, and still earlier – with Svetlana Antipova. I hope we will establish extensive relations after the opera house is opened.

— Are there any Odessites among the academy’s students?

— Sad to say, but no… We have problems with state-funded education for girls and boys from CIS countries because these are separate states. Today is not a happy time for ballet in general, because of the disintegration of the relations that were once established. And there is only one ballet school in the post-Soviet space – the Vaganova school. In other words, the entire methodology rests on the “Vaganova school”.

— I hear ballet is a dying art form…

— I wouldn’t say it’s dying, I’d say it’s been left to its own devices. In the commercial world we’re living in, we definitely lack people who would be interested in promoting ballet. Our schools and colleges are striving on their own. We will teach as many children (we have a boarding school at the academy) as we find. The lack of students is the biggest problem. Enrollment has drastically dropped, there are very few children to enroll.

— How do you account for it?

— First, it is because of the demographic decline. We admit children from 10 years old, and in the 1990-s birth rates declined due to the economic and political instability. Second, the choice is now bigger. Parents ask themselves why make a child choose such a tough career, for which the child will first have to study long and hard, and then nobody knows at which theatre he or she will manage to get a job, and what kind of job it will be. And after 20 years, a ballet dancer retires, and at the age of 40 years old the career is in fact over. So, may be, it’s better if a child becomes an economist, or a lawyer, or a programmer?…

— Are you talking about the situation in the academy or in general?

— The situation is the same all over Russia and, as you can easily imagine, also in Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

— What about Governor Valentina Matvienko: does she share your concerns about ballet or does she have other things to worry about?

— Well, she does share our concerns. Last autumn, she visited the academy, and after her visit we were promised to get finance for the reconstruction. So, we are in for repairs. Besides, the former rector of our academy, who is today the deputy culture minister, is also helping us. Thanks to it, we keep afloat.

— Still, you say that ballet is being neglected. What do you mean?

— Ballet does not receive the attention it used to receive. We always existed in a closed system and were among the privileged ones. And then, all over sudden, one day everything changed. And the people who represent public authorities changed, too. They do give us attention but it is not the priority attention that we had at the times of the USSR. The state has a lot of other problems, and ballet is just a kind of a very expensive toy.

— But will sufficient attention from the state help solve your main problem: attracting children to ballet? This problem does have to be addressed somehow…

— The academy has a standing admission committee. The committee members will look for children in the regions and CIS countries. The problem is about how to explain to a child’s parents what are the prospects for the child who we take away from home at ten years old. Even if a child is the right type for ballet and wants to dance, we still must find compelling arguments to convince parents that their child must study at the academy. To provide some social protection for our graduates, we want to be able to offer them at least four-year degree programmes.

— We talked about preservation of traditions. Still, the academy can’t ignore a phenomenon such as modern dance, can it?

— We are going to open a modern dance department. On the other hand, the modern style is associated with much ambivalence. It is a totally different culture that has been injected into our reality, and our post-Soviet space is only opening up for the modern style. The fact is that we lived in an empire, and the Vaganova school is an imperial school. It was forced across the whole system, and the whole system was arranged in line with one Vaganova classical ballet school. It is OK for classical dance, with its rigidly uniform framework, but the modern style does not have any common methodology. It does not have one common school, it varies greatly because in modern dance everything is centered around and built on personality. Not on the system, not on the technique, not on a uniform school, but on how one expresses oneself in dance. That’s why classical dance lovers are cold to modern dance fans, and vice versa.

— But by their origin, they are also from classical dance, aren’t they?

— Few of them have any classical ballet training. In a word, it’s very complicated with the modern style. Still, I think we need to break somehow into this space, pull it towards us.

— You know much about ballet abroad. Would it be right to compare it with Russian ballet from the point of view of professionalism?

— These are, substantially, different schools, even though it may seem that classical ballet is always classical ballet and the system is the same. Still, there are nuances, not only within France, or the US, but also within Russia. The schools of Moscow and of Saint Petersburg differ by the culture of performance. The school of Saint Petersburg is more standardized, it is very stiff as they say in Moscow. In Moscow, ballet is more free, unconstrained, with more personal freedom.

— So, where is now the art of ballet most in demand?

— It is mostly demanded by a very small number of ballet lovers, who are not as in the old days. But we must try to increase their number. One of the functions of the theatre is to educate its audience.

Irina GOLYAEVA,

Odesskie Izvestiya