The All-Russian competition of young performers “Russian Ballet” was held in Moscow

This competition differs from others primarily in that it is, in fact, a review of choreographic schools in Russia. The best students, usually in their final year, performing on the main ballet stage of Russia, show the jury, consisting of the heads of leading Russian ballet theaters, their skills and, most importantly, receive invitations to find employment. We are essentially faced with a kind of ballet labor market. And the main prize in this competition is the right to choose a place for a year-long internship in one of the theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

It is held every two years, but due to the pandemic, the last time was held in absentia in 2022. Then the Grand Prix and gold medal went to the students of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography Sofya Maimula and Makar Mikhalkin, who today work at the Bolshoi Theater and perform with great success on the famous stage in solo roles.

The qualifying, first round of the Russian Ballet is closed: each educational institution that has submitted an application to participate in the competition determines the participants in the second stage. This time, 26 young participants and 2 partners out of competition from 15 ballet schools of Russia – Perm, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Krasnodar and Krasnogorsk choreographic schools, Buryat, Krasnoyarsk, Bashkir, Mari, Ural, Saratov choreographic colleges, two Moscow schools appeared on the Bolshoi stage – them. M.L. Lavrovsky and the school at the Gzhel Dance Theater, and two academies – Moscow and Boris Eifman Dance Academy. The only one that did not participate in the competition this time was the Academy of Russian Ballet. Vaganova, who, however, has recently not sent her students to competitions, in which the competition is quite high.

The Moscow Academy of Choreography turned out to be in the lead, as, indeed, always. She received the Grand Prix of the competition, which was a figurine “Ballet Pointe Shoes”, and two commemorative gold medals produced at the St. Petersburg Mint of Goznak.

Gold among young men was awarded to this year’s future graduate of the academy, Maxim Nakhimovich (teacher G.K. Gusev), and the gold laureate was also a final year student of the Moscow State Academy of Arts, owner of elongated lines and a high jump, Darina Moseeva (teacher E.N. Vatulya). She demonstrated excellently danced variations at the competition: Gamzatti from the ballet “La Bayadère” and Svanilda from the ballet “Coppelia”, in which she showed a fairly good and strong school of classical dance. The Moscow State Academy of Arts student is tall, but now this is not such a significant disadvantage or obstacle in her career.

I saw Maxim Nakhimovich’s performances at the Yuri Grigorovich International Competition “Young Ballet of the World” in Sochi, where he performed only as a partner and did not participate in the dancers’ competition. Now he has greatly improved his technique and was a good partner of the main winner, this year’s Grand Prix owner Kamila Sultangareeva (teacher E.N. Vatulya). She is 18 years old and this year she also graduates from the Moscow Academy. In the pas de deux from the ballet Don Quixote, the couple danced quite temperamentally, showed decent technique and did not raise any doubts about their leadership among the other participants.

However, the exclusive primacy of the Moscow Academy, which celebrated its 250th anniversary last year, was challenged this year by the Moscow Choreographic School at the Gzhel Dance Theater, which also celebrated its 20th anniversary last year; as well as the Buryat Choreographic College. Although the latter’s exit to the finals was little expected, the well-trained second-year student of this educational institution, Ayush Bulchun (teacher Yu. F. Muruev), who showed an elegant manner and purity of dance in the variations from “Paquita” and “Coppelia” he danced, really proved that he fully deserved the silver at the competition, although he had quite strong competitors here. For example, Perm residents Mikhail Mavlyanov and Nikolai Tashkinov (teacher V.Ya. Alikin), final year students of the Perm College. As a result, Mikhail Mavlyanov became a laureate of the third degree and the owner of a bronze medal, having danced excellently at the very beginning of the second part with his fellow student Anna Chertkova (teacher N.A. Stebletsova) in the pas de deux of Lisa and Colin from the ballet “Vain Precaution”.

But the presence in the finals and the silver medal of the Moscow Choreographic School at the Gzhel Dance Theater was not a surprise. This is not the first victory for the school in such significant competitions. There have already been victories here: gold and silver medals at the Arabesque competition, and even bronze at the Moscow International Competition, held at the Bolshoi every four years.

The third-year student of the Gzhel School, Daria Platonova (teacher B.M. Lapina), who won silver, was unusually temperamental and well-trained in the fiery dance of the Bacchae from the famous choreographic scene from the opera “Faust” and in the variation from the ballet “Corsair”.

– With her victory in such a competition, Dasha made a great contribution to the development and history of our school. We have been working towards this result for a long time, we have been waiting for it also because such an example is of great importance for motivating primary school students and for children who only dream of enrolling with us, said the director of the school at the Gzhel Dance Theater, Victoria Bezrukova.

Yesenia Aushenkova, a student at the Boris Eifman Dance Academy, who became a bronze laureate of the Russian Ballet, was also charming in Masha’s variation from Vasily Vainonen’s “The Nutcracker.” In general, the Eifman Academy is making great strides not only in the field of modern dance, but also in classical dance. It is enough to name the graduate of this academy the year before last, Daniil Potaptsev, who was already transferred in his second year of work to the soloists of the Bolshoi Theater, where they are making a big bet on him (he is supposed to appear in the role of Romeo in the first cast in the upcoming premiere of the Bolshoi Theater “Romeo and Juliet”). Artists of the Musical Theater named after. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Anfisa Oshchepkova, Roman Shevchenko, Igor Klinsky (who made his debut in the TV project “Bolshoi Ballet” as a choreographer) – all of them are recent graduates of this particular academy.

Speaking about the artists of “Stasik”, one cannot fail to mention the phenomenally gifted Englishman, last year’s graduate of the Vaganova Academy, Taiga Kodama-Pomfret, who performed at the “Russian Ballet” out of competition, supporting a student of the Krasnogorsk branch of the Moscow Provincial College of Arts, Maria Popova. His dance in Pas d’Esclave from the ballet Le Corsaire literally stunned the audience. Having won a silver medal in 2022, this magnificent dancer created a real fireworks display on the New Stage of the Bolshoi with a variety of tricks and technically complex jumping elements, which previously could only be performed by the champion in men’s classical dance, Ivan Vasiliev. One could only regret the non-competitive status of this virtuoso – if he had performed as a competitor, the Grand Prix would have been guaranteed.

In general, the jury this year, which does not always happen, was quite objective. There was no point in promoting any of the participants among the leaders of the ballet troupes (this time they were Mahar Vaziev, Boris Eifman, Yuri Fateev, Vyacheslav Gordeev, Alexey Miroshnichenko, Maria Allash). Rather, they looked closely at the contestants with a view to inviting them to their companies.

“I have very pleasant impressions of the competition, if only because it continues to live and moves forward,” commented on the results of the Russian Ballet, a member of the competition jury, artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater ballet troupe, Mahar Vaziev. – For me personally, this is very important, because here we largely determine the future. Look how many laureates of the competition are already working at the Bolshoi Theater, and some, by the way, performed today. Therefore, without pathos, I will say that overall this is an interesting event for me. I won’t lie, I looked more closely, as a member of the jury, at representatives from the regions. What was more important today for the competition as a whole was to give them different opportunities. I won’t hide it, some of the contestants pleasantly surprised me with their training, the presence of some basic knowledge, their artistry, and their musicality, so I have a very good impression…