Media - «Museum and Ballet — Joint Professions»: Interview // Radio, Television of St. Petersburg: newspaper. — 2001. — July 31 (No. 32 (2362)). — p. 2.

“MUSEUM and BALLET are COMPATIBLE PROFESSIONS,” says Aleksey Fomkin.

… I’d been meaning to meet Marina L. Vivien, Director of the museum of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet for almost fifteen years, a graduate of what was previously known as the Choreographic Institute, the daughter of the legendary stage director Leonid S. Vivien, the legendary artistic director of the Alexandrinsky Ballet Theatre, FOR A LONG TIME. However, each time something got in the way… and as always, I thought: I still have time. But now it’s too late: the one I really wanted to talk to has moved to France. I still wanted to visit the museum on Architect Rossi Street, and was welcomed by its current director, 28-year-old Aleksey V. Fomkin (in the photo), a dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet. This generational handover seemed both logical and significant to me – after all, new wine should be poured into old wineskins…

— … Anyway, how did it happen that you, who have been dancing on the glorious stage for ten years, became the director of the museum? I must admit that I found this combination surprising!

— You may not know it, but the museum has always been run by people who came from the ballet and grew up within these walls, ever since Marietta Kh. Frangopulo founded it in 1957, although after she had retired from the stage… This August we will commemorate the centennial of her birth.

Marina L. Vivien studied here, too. Unlike my predecessors, I continue to dance on stage…

— So which is your first priority: the stage or the museum?

— The stage, of course! First of all, it started earlier… I graduated from the Choreographic Institute in 1991, in the class of Yuri I. Umrikhin. Then I started dancing in the theater. Five years later, I felt like going back to school and getting a degree. At that time, the institute was transformed into the Academy, where a school of education with a ballet science department was opened. That’s what I graduated from…

— How many years did you study to become a ballet specialist?

— Five years. Without quitting my job.

— You kept dancing at the Mariinsky Theatre?

— Yes, of course. There was no extramural education here. It was very hard… Only two of us took the course, which was taught by the well-known St. Petersburg ballet scholar Marina A. Ilyicheva.

— ?!.

— Don’t be surprised! Only those with formal ballet training were accepted, and there were few who were interested in continuing their studies. Last year I got my degree in ballet science – around the time Marina L. Vivien decided to leave. Together with the rector, Leonid N. Nadirov, they thought long and hard about who should run the museum, and they chose me.

— You were right on time: the Academy of Russian Ballet created its own specialist to run the museum. But aren’t you, a person accustomed to the glamor and festivity of the theater stage, to the dynamism of the main profession, bored within these walls?

— Not really — I have an affinity for museum and archival work… I wrote my thesis in the archives, and I enjoyed it.

— And what was the topic of your thesis?

— About the church of the Choreographic Institute – its spiritual influence on the formation of future ballet dancers. Our church was founded in 1806, when the institute was located on Catherine’s Canal; it was closed in 1923 and revived three years ago. Oleg M. Vinogradov, a ballet master, donated to the church his very large collection of icons, which he had been building all his life. I wrote a book based on my thesis – I gave it to the printer a week ago.

— And what will it be called?

— It will be called “Two Centuries of the Theater Church”.

— Speaking to you as the director of the museum, I also see before me a dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet. You just flew back from a ten-day tour in London: how was it?

— This time I was not with a ballet, but with the opera “The Masquerade Ball”. It has dancing, pantomime. At Covent Garden we showed our productions of Verdi’s works – Aida, Otello, Macbeth… The house was full, but the press was not very kind to us, although they love our theater there.

— And what do you dance on the stage of your home theater?

— I’m not a soloist, so I perform in all the ballets…

— But how does the Mariinsky Theatre feel about the fact that its artist is also the director of the museum of the Academy of Russian Ballet?

— Makhar Kh. Vaziev, the head of our ballet company, has an agreement with the rector regarding my time. But I have to say that I dance a lot less in the theater now than I used to: about ten to fifteen shows a month. Moreover, I decide when to perform and often have to say no: I have a full-time job at the museum – I also have to deal with the press, make various phone calls and write all kinds of correspondence…

But I like this busy life, even though it’s not easy to share these two jobs. I’m drawn to academic research – I’m definitely going to write my dissertation, and here I teach – I give lectures to seniors in the history of ballet.

— Now I have a scholar and a museum director in front of me again. So please tell us about new museum additions, if there are any…

— The museum receives regular donations from both Russian and foreign donors… Recently, for example, a distant relative of Valentin I. Shelkov, the former director of our institute, called and asked us to take over his archive. Near my desk – do you see? – there is a filing cabinet of Vera A. Krasovskaya, doctor of art history. Everything collected in these little boxes is literally priceless, and in time will probably be in the ballet science office that we are about to open, which will bear her name. We also have a large archive of Konstantin M. Sergeyev and Natalia M. Dudinskaya, which is regularly filled with new albums.

— Only recently has the clamor over the transfer of the great ballerina Anna Pavlova’s ashes from her London tomb to Russia subsided… What is the position of the Academy of Russian Ballet and, in particular, the museum in this long-standing dispute?

— In general, we are against disturbing Pavlova’s grave… It was the idea of some private foundation that wanted to improve its image in this way. It’s quite another thing to take care of the graves of Anna’s parents in the Krasnenkoe cemetery – thank God her mother’s goddaughter is still alive, she looks after them all the time, and in the fall Mr. Nadirov and I will go there to see this place before it’s too late…

In my opinion, things should stay the way they turned out to be in life.

— And one more thing about the museum… I know it’s closed to outsiders, and that’s a shame. I’m sure many people would love to visit it. To see the halls of the pre-revolutionary, Imperial ballet and the Soviet, modern ballet. There are so many portraits, photographs, showcases with costumes of legendary ballet dancers, and so many interesting documents!

— I agree with you. However, the museum has always been only for those who study at the Academy of Russian Ballet. They really need it. We don’t even let in all of our important guests. So please, no hard feelings, dear ballet fans…

— Unfortunately, the creative life of a ballet dancer is frustratingly short!

— Yes, about twenty years give or take…

— And you already have a solid foothold in your life, though it’s hardly worth getting that far ahead of yourself. In any case, I wish you the best of luck in your museum career!

Interviewed by Vadim BRUSYANIN