Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal have their own Russian ballet mistress, one who seems to have done it all, journeying from the Kirov Ballet to Broadway via American Ballet Theatre. I met her during the company’s tour to Paris in the summer of 2008, and a long interview for Ballet.co ensued :
(…) How did you decide to move to the USA?
I actually didn’t decide to move. I didn’t plan anything. I was on tour with the Kirov in the States, and I realized that for personal and professional reasons it would be better for me to try to find something else, elsewhere. I am very grateful to Mikhail Baryshnikov. I don’t think that without him I would have had enough courage to even pick up the phone and call American Ballet Theatre to audition. He came up to me in the hallway of David Howard’s dance studio after seeing me in class. He motivated me, he told me : you’re a good dancer, you should, you must dance ! I didn’t dance for two years between the Kirov and ABT. I had no papers, I didn’t speak English. I had nothing. I was even unable to pay for ballet classes. With his blessing, I entered American Ballet Theatre.
How important is musicality for you?
To me musicality is everything. I still cannot understand movement without music or any rhythm. I played the violin for almost 5 years before entering the Vaganova school, where we all had 8 years of piano. It allows us to be familiar with music terms, to read scores and to feel comfortable working with conductors, pianists and any other musicians. It is a necessary part of dance education, as much as the history of art, music and ballet or literature…
During my time with ABT, I would often choose which class to take by the pianist who was playing. I have to admit that classes were a very weak element in that company, unless such people as Vladilen Semeonov, Gradimir Pankov, Sergei Berejnoy or Mr. Carreño, Jose Carreño’s uncle, came to teach. I see with great sadness the loss of musicality in almost every company and school around the world. It is all nowadays about pirouettes and extension, rearely about soul, mind and body becoming one, lost in musical harmony and phrasing. I always remember how my teacher, Ludmila Safronova, who was Agrippina Vaganova’s very last protégée, chose music for every exam and even every class, especially when it came to adagio. I’ll never forget my graduation. For the grand adagio she picked Rachmaninov’s elegia. When I think about this music, even now, I have goosebumps. Every note would resonate in the tips of my fingers and toes. I felt it in my eyelashes, my spine was like an electric cord but the whole body, me – a wild, strong but meek and sad animal. That’s the musicality she was teaching us. Technique is powerful but it is still just a tool that helps building a way to the real freedom every dancer, every performer, every true artist needs. Dance is music or, I would say, music is dance. To me, music is life. I can’t imagine my existence without it. (…)
» Full interview in Ballet.co Magazine, December 2009 issue
© Anatoly Bisinbayev
