The VI All-Russian competition of young performers “Russian Ballet” has ended at the Bolshoi Theater

The VI All-Russian Competition for Young Performers “Russian Ballet” ended on the New Stage of the Bolshoi Theater, bringing together 26 participants from 15 choreographic institutions in the final round. The Grand Prix and two gold medals were won by graduates of the Moscow Academy of Choreography (MGAC). Tells Tatiana Kuznetsova.

The competition, on the sidelines called “Medvedev’s” after Svetlana Medvedeva, president of the Foundation for Social and Cultural Initiatives, who together with the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation became its initiator and founder, has been held every two years since 2013 (covid year 2021 was missed) for graduates and pre-graduates of domestic ballet schools. In theory, this is a “fair of brides” and “grooms”: the competition is designed to promote regional talents, giving young people from the outback a chance to make a career. According to the conditions, the winner of the Grand Prix receives the right to an internship in the leading troupes of the country. But, as practice has shown, the story of Cinderella only happens in fairy tales: the winners of all six competitions are graduates of the Moscow State Academy of Arts, who would have been accepted into the Bolshoi Theater without this test. Gold medals are also constantly taken away by Moscow “academicians”, except that in 2017 they were taken by St. Petersburg graduates Eleanor Sevenard and Yegor Gerashchenko, who, by the way, were immediately intercepted by the Bolshoi. Whether for this reason or because of frustration from regular losses, the Vaganova Academy now ignores the competition. However, the Russian Ballet was not left without St. Petersburg residents – the place of the historical citadel of academicism was taken by the young Boris Eifman Dance Academy, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year. Its graduates, no less polished, but more relaxed, not only take prizes, but also increasingly occupy prominent positions in serious troupes (like, for example, Daniil Potaptsev, who made an enchanting career at the Bolshoi in a season and a half).

Uninformed ill-wishers may decide that the regionals are being judged by the capital’s arbitrators: before the last competition, Yuri Grigorovich was listed as the permanent chairman of the jury, since this year his post has been taken by the rector of the Moscow State Academy of Arts, Marina Leonova. Individual taste imbalances may occur, but the general trend testifies to the objectivity and competence of the jury: all the winners and gold medalists of previous years (with the exception of the very first, Alexander Omelchenko) became leading soloists, primas and premieres of the Bolshoi: Alexey Putintsev, Elizaveta Kokoreva, Dmitry Smilevski, Sofia Maimula and others formed the new generation of his troupe. In essence, the judges, representing theaters and not interested in the school’s victories, have no one and no need to lobby: there are no “friends” in the competition. So this time, the influential jury (Boris Eifman, Vyacheslav Gordeev, ballet bosses of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theaters Yuri Fateev and Mahar Vaziev, Perm artistic director Alexey Miroshnichenko and Bolshoi tutor Maria Allash) quite reasonably awarded the main prizes to the graduates of the Moscow State Academic Academy. Muscovites, familiar with the Bolshoi stage (its size and slope of the floor), who wisely selected their pas de deux and variations, looked more confident than their visiting peers, although the crop of talent this year was far from previous records.

Grand Prix winner Kamila Sultangareeva, who smartly danced the pas de deux from Don Quixote, will probably get into the Bolshoi, as will her partner, gold medalist Maxim Nakhimovich – a handsome brunette with clean dancing and decent skills in the art of support. But whether they will break into the group of young Moscow idols or get stuck in the “second soloists” depends on various circumstances: their gift is not so powerful as to predict their rise from school. Long-legged Darina Moseeva, the second winner of the gold medal, is too tall to be a prima – she needs a partner who is two meters tall. But this girl has a surprisingly high jump for her height, which opens the way to various jumping variations. Ideally, for the role of Myrta in Giselle, if the Bolshoi teachers manage to overcome some of the dancer’s woodenness and correct technical errors.

Here it is worth clarifying that the Moscow State Academy of Arts is in the lead not so much because the teachers at the academy are better and more experienced, but because Moscow has the opportunity to choose students. The merits of regional teachers were best demonstrated by a film replay of fragments of the contestants’ performances, which occupied the crowded auditorium during the counting of points. So, the gold medalist Moseeva, using the method of movement, did the Italian fouette (this is a large complex step with a kick out of the leg in a la seconde and a subsequent turn of 270 degrees into a large attitude pose, which should not be confused with everyone’s favorite rotation) much worse than the steep-shouldered, tall, sophomore Sofya Dmitrieva from the Mari College of Culture and Arts with toned legs. The fact that the class of a teacher does not depend on his place of work, the Russian Ballet demonstrated with extreme clarity to everyone who knows how to separate the work of the teacher from the performance of the student. Let’s say Karina Yartseva from the Saratov College of Arts came to study ballet only at the age of 14. She danced with enthusiasm, probably from early childhood, because by the age of 13 she had won many strange prizes, including the “Hope of Europe” and the international World Folk Vision. At the competition, it was clear that teacher Lyudmila Telius did everything possible to harness this sparkling little one with academic classics, but she could not get rid of the clumsiness of “bad pronunciation” – time had already been lost. On the other hand, the judges were able to appreciate the achievements of the Buryat teacher Yuri Muruev, although Bulchun Ayush, who won silver, danced with errors on an unfamiliar sloping stage. However, the culture of gesture, the elegant softness of jumps and the purity of the young man’s positions clearly indicated that the men’s dance of Buryatia was in good hands.

The ability to select a suitable classical repertoire (competitors perform two variations or one pas de deux) is also a pedagogical gift. Thus, Yesenia Anushenkova, a lovely graduate of the Eifman Academy, a trainee at the Mariinsky Theater who had already danced the Lady of the Dryads on its stage, was assigned to perform an anathema-heavy variation from Paquita with two large rounds a la seconde, in which the deer legs of the fragile girl were cut off. As a result, she fell back to third place, letting Daria Platonova from the Gzhel School pass into second place (by the way, this “folk” school regularly supplies theaters with “classics” – right up to the Bolshoi premiere Denis Rodkin) – she felt very at ease in the not too the difficult variation of the Odalisque from “The Corsair” and in the frisky pointe leaps and spins of the Bacchae.

But no matter how hard the teachers try, young artists (though not so young, almost all participants are 18–19 years old) must be able to present themselves. And here natural inclinations often come into insurmountable contradiction with natural data. Let’s say, it suddenly turns out that a long-legged, slender young man, who looks like a five-minute prince, cannot dance at all: he lacks not only the necessary physical abilities, but also coordination. Or vice versa – a dancing, organic girl, burning with a love of ballet, may have such an unattractive appearance that it is better for her to nip the dream of noticeable roles in the bud. There are also cases when a future artist clearly does not like the profession. Thus, the Perm winner of the third prize, Mikhail Mavlyanov – a well-trained young man, with excellent feet, soft legs, leisurely but steady rotation, a successful jump and a natural sense of pose – danced with such a mien, as if he was sorting through rotten agricultural products at a vegetable warehouse, while he the co-star in “A Vain Precaution” flirted for three.

The main discovery of the VI Russian Ballet was a foreigner who performed outside the competition. Taiga Kodama-Pomfret, who accompanied Maria Popova from the Krasnogorsk branch of the Moscow Provincial College of Arts (it turns out there is one, and he teaches seriously – the contestant’s toned legs and her pure technique are proof of this), flew through the sky in Pas d’esclave from “Corsair”, scrolling through three codebasks without any effort. On two legs (with his legs drawn up) he froze in the air, as if lost in thought; on the contrary, he spun around, recklessly and recklessly, but with impeccable purity. This fabulous, temperamental Briton with a Soviet predilection for stunt feats studied the classics in Birmingham from the age of ten, then studied for a year at the Vaganova Academy, after graduating in 2022 he ended up at the Stanislavsky Music Theater and settled in the corps de ballet, unknown to anyone. He is, of course, small in stature, however, for example, Ivan Vasiliev, the idol of the last decade, is no taller than Taiga, and is much more clumsy, which did not prevent him from becoming the prime minister of the Bolshoi and Mikhailovsky. It seems that the Briton with an exotic name, who won second place at the International Competition in Moscow in the same 2022, does not have an outstanding career here. So competition is competition, data is data, training is training, and luck and the circumstances of the moment in ballet determine everything. And not only in ballet.