POSTED ON10.02.2025
If someone hears about the Vaganova Academy for the first time, they might think that Agrippina Vaganova was its founder, but this is not true.
- Today the Academy of Russian Ballet is located in the heart of St. Petersburg on Rossi Street and this year will be celebrating its 287th anniversary!
- In 1738, Empress Anna Ioannovna founded the first Russian ballet school in one of the royal palaces along the Neva embankment.
- Jean-Baptiste Landé, a renowned French choreographer, became the school’s first headmaster. After him, many great ballet masters worked there: Charles Didelot, Marius Petipa, Enrico Cecchetti, Nikolai Legat and Mikhail Fokin.
- At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, phenomenon of Russian ballet emerged from the fusion of French elegance and Italian virtuosity in dance. The distinctive qualities of Russian dancers include graceful arms, harmonious movements, and a strong classical technique.
- Agrippina Vaganova, who performed at the Mariinsky Theatre from 1897 to 1915, earned the title of “queen of variations”. After her retirement, she returned to her alma mater as a strict and demanding teacher with new pedagogical methods.
- In the mid-1920s, she developed a universal training system for ballet dancers, which is now known as the Vaganova System. She rose several generations of brilliant Soviet-era dancers, including Semenova, Ulanova, Osipenko, Kolpakova, etc.
- In 1934, Vaganova published her seminal book “Fundamentals of Classical Ballet”, which has since become the basis of the Russian ballet tradition. Many of her pupils became teachers and continue to develop her legacy.
- Today, the St. Petersburg Academy of Russian Ballet is the main center for ballet education in Russia, and proudly bears the name of Agrippina Vaganova.
