Last year, I resided in a place near Laguna Beach, Orange County… from here a several-mile scenic ride takes you to Newport Beach, where one day I decided to visit the Neiman Marcus.
I walked through the upscale department store, where on the whole, I found nothing new or noteworthy, apart from the high-end labels and steep prices. Practically on my way out, I wandered past a section on the upper floor when I did a double take: ballet dancers on a T-shirt ??!!
A little digging and it turns out these T’s are part of a Max Mara exhibit, launched to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Italian design company, which completed its international celebration tour at the State Historical Museum in Moscow over a decade ago.
For the momentous occasion, Max Mara commissioned a photographer whose work, inclined towards the aesthetics of human form, is showcased in galleries of Paris, London, New York, Madrid, Shanghai, Belgium, Mexico and Russia.
In preparing to shoot the exhibition “COATS”, the Belarus-born visual artist Valery Katsuba came up with the motif Albatross, a concept that for him embodies moving forward while embracing your history.
In fact, the Albatross is a seabird that looks like a slightly larger version of a seagull. The artist finds awe in the flight of this bird, its gliding course above the ocean amidst strong wings reminds him of the most hauntingly beautiful moments in life… moments deeply etched into your memory, moments that accompany you forever.
And so for Katsuba, the fashion company’s milestone salutes the stance of moving into the future whilst carrying the legacy of the past on your wings, just as the Albatross.
To create the impressive images on the cotton jersey T-shirts, the photographer worked with Bolshoi Ballet artists Anna Nakhapetova, Yury Baranov, Anton Savichev and Maxim Surov. An iconic image epitomizes the installation tableau with Anna in the forefront wearing the designer label’s camel colored coat, an Albatross above her, and male ballet dancers behind her caught in flight.
The shirts I saw in 2021 were attributed to the comeback of Max Mara’s classical dance collection as an “Anniversary Capsule” to celebrate its 70th year.
Valery Katsuba’s love for the human aesthetic enters into his work with ballet artists, inserted into settings that illuminate timeless themes of historical and cultural relevance. In one such project, the photographer juxtaposes a ballet dancer amidst the paintings of 18th & 19th century Spanish artist Francisco Goya.
In another collaborative endeavor, Katsuba works with the exceptional ballet artist Oxana Skorik, in one instance showcasing her classical dance pose against an impressive marble statue captioned “Dioscuro.” The figure is one of two twin brothers from Greek and Roman mythology, the sons of Zeus and Jupiter, depicted as gods of horsemanship and protectors of travelers, the pair are referred to as “the Dioskouroi”.
From the bird in flight, to a tremendous painter of our civilization, to semi-divine figures in historical mythology conceived by gods and humans coming together, it becomes evident that the photographer is transfixed by the idea of ascension — the state of a mere mortal aspiring and rising towards something higher.
Ballet fits this subject like a glove, or perhaps more aptly said, like a slipper, as in its very essence, the artform demands a complete devotion of mind, body and spirit, where all the realms of consciousness unite, enabling the human being to literally mold the self into an elevated version of oneself.
Skorik, a Ukrainian-born dancer who graduated from the highly-respected Perm Ballet School, a.k.a. Perm State Choreographic College, a classical dance institution known for its high caliber staff and training in the revered Vaganova Method, and who then rose to the top ranks of the classical dance world becoming a principal ballet artist of the globally treasured Mariinsky Theater, says in a recent clip where she is invited to teach a class of youngsters who aspire to her standard:
“It is not just about the physical work, it is about great mental work… and progress can only be made with the capacity to learn [in this league].”
So, what is the statement that ballet makes at Neiman Marcus, or anywhere else it arrives for that matter? It’s beyond words. It is a visual representation of ideals that most of us strive for.
Through the ballet dancer, qualities rarely seen together are combined into a synergistic working unit of consciousness.
toughness and fineness
stillness and movement
collectedness and fluidity
asymmetry and balance
absurdity and grace
science and art
masculine and feminine
All in ONE.
These perceived opposites work together in harmony, to comprise the alchemy of the underlying foundation of an expression that, with mathematical precision, represents a supreme standard of beauty recognized universally.
Really, Valery Katsuba and his quest for beauty reflects the very same yearning that lives in each of us… we all seek to feel it and to express it… many of us don’t know any better than to try and possess it.
But what is beauty, really?
The one thing we can probably agree on is that beauty is connected to an elevated state of being.
Perhaps the only thing we know for sure is that it involves evolving ourselves, evolving our consciousness.
Do you remember my blog on Ludmila Komissarova, the central figure in the famous Vaganova graduating class photo of 1951?
Ludmila Nikolajevna Komissarova was one of the last students to train under the scrupulously watchful eye of legendary Russian ballet master Agrippina Vaganova.
Komissarova was in turn the teacher of my dear ballet friend Anna Korotysheva who actually inspired me to write the piece.
Well, this is the day Lana and I visited the London based school of Komissarova’s daughter, Olga.
Herself a graduate of the revered ballet establishment on Rossi Street, Olga Semenova has continued to carry on her mother’s tradition starting from her teaching days at the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Moving to the UK some decades ago, Olga eventually set up her own shop, founding the Russian Imperial Ballet School where she continued to teach the unparalleled system of classical dance. Today, her establishment is known as Masters of Ballet Academy (MOBA).
This was the day that we visited Olga at her MOBA school, where she arranged for us to observe an advanced class with one of her male instructors, and afterwards join her in her own rehearsal with a select group of students she was preparing for a trip to St. Petersburg where they would perform Olga’s choreography at the Hermitage Museum.
As it happens, the group was shortly leaving for the trip and the atmosphere was frantic – though it somehow felt that there’s always something brewing at Olga’s place with her temperamental character at the helm.
Still, we managed to get her out for a snapshot before saying adieu.
On the walk back to our neck of the London woods, we passed by several landmarks you’ll see below.
Perhaps she does not exist in the very same embodiment as the great master who single-handedly established the system of classical dance used the world over today, but Vaganova certainly does live on in the embodiment of her students, and in turn their students.
The body that Vaganova did leave behind, is the integral educational framework constructed from extracting and coherently integrating essential attributes of Italian, French and Russian ballet. The home of this system is the elite international academy which carries the name of its creator, Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia.
If Vaganova did choose to live on in specific vessels, one of these would be Irina Kolpakova, who graduated in the last class ever taught by Vaganova.
In her experience with the great teacher, Irina Alexandrovna apparently acquired the coveted code of classical dance with mathematical precision. Perhaps this is not a great surprise, considering Irina’s father was a mathematician of the highest caliber.
What is remarkable, is how this being-level knowledge that seeped into Irina through her connection with her beloved teacher, has reflected throughout her life and career, molding her potentials into accomplishments that have forged a force of an identity, making her who she is.
The famous disciple of Vaganova who is described as personifying the best features of the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Classical School of Ballet was invited by one of her former dance partners, Mikhail Baryshnikov, to teach at American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in the 1980’s. Irina joined the company as Ballet Mistress in 1990, where she tirelessly – by her own account – continues to teach today.
Kolpakova encapsulates the essence of the precious legacy she possesses and in turn passes onto others in Victor Okuntsov’s 1986 Russian docufilm “Agrippina Vaganova”.
Here is the translation:
Her (Vaganova’s) methodology is timeless.
It is so universal. It’s so universal because it’s very high in its purity of the classical form, classical dance. That is first.
Second, in its extraordinary harmony, harmony of all the parts of the body. This is what Agrippina Yakovlevna paid the greatest attention to: that a ballet dancer did not go out (on stage) with merely strong, beautiful, developed legs, or only amazing, supple, flexible arms while the legs are doing unthinkable things. Or, for example, with a marvelous back, strong as steel, stable, capable of, ‘aplomb’ as it’s called (aplomb refers to unwavering stability maintained during a vertical pose or movement).
But for the dance to be truly something akin to the Russian soul, the Russian character… this heightened inspiration, this soulfulness, this harmony of all the parts of the body… alive, moving eyes… head… flexible, soft hands and very strong, hard legs and strong, or ‘hard’ toe, as we say.
All of this, is to serve one goal: expressiveness, expressiveness of the dance. As Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (famous Russian poet) said: ‘the flight of the soul through dance’.
– Irina Kolpakova
In the timeline of her life and career, Irina has managed to capture an entire spectrum of association with ballet greats from the time of Marius Petipa to the phenoms of today including David Hallberg, Natalia Osipova and Misty Copeland to name a few.
The well-known prima Diana Vishneva recaps it as follows:
She’s a student of Vaganova, this pretty much says everything. One of Vaganova’s favorite, last students. She has worked with ballet dancers who worked with Marius Petipa… this great legacy, this great connection between the tradition, history of the school… she’s a representative of the most real Vaganova school.
Vladimir Vasiliev, The Bolshoi Ballet dance star and choreographer named “God of the dance” and regarded as a classical dancer on the same level as Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, danced with Kolpakova in the 1984 ballet movie “The House Near The Road”.
Vasiliev said of Kolpakova:
“She is made of steel. In her is a combination of a delicate nature and a very strong person, a very strong-willed person.”
Diana Vishneva recounts what ballet star Natalia Makarova once conveyed to her about Irina Kolpakova:
“Natalia Romanovna Makarova thought back to when she was younger…”
“I remember when we were in the studio with Alla Osipenko, watching Irina Alexandrovna Kolpakova and saying, ‘it’s impossible to achieve such clean movements, it’s just too despicably good!’ “
– Natalia Makarova
In the 2013 Russian documentary “Life in Time: Irina Kolpakova”, Irina sits in her NY apartment in front of her laptop looking over footage of her work with ABT dancers, commenting: “this is Firebird… with David Hallberg, Natasha (Natalia) Osipova, Marcelo Gomez…”
It’s no secret that Irina is a precious commodity at ABT, dearly appreciated by the dancers as well as Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie:
She’s a shining example of the purity of Vaganova… beyond the technical aspect… she has a feeling for the music and the depth of knowledge… the history of each ballet and how the variations went and how they worked all through time. She has nurtured 3 generations of dancers at ABT… I really feel they would have not had as good a career as they had, had it not been for her.
For decades, Irina has brought and continues to bring the same fervor to her work as did her beloved Agrippina Vaganova, recalling her own experience with the formidable teacher:
Everyone dreamed of getting into Vaganova’s class. We worshipped her every word. We tried to understand her every word – which was often very difficult – and to actualize it was even more difficult…
… Our first day in her class, I remember we just practiced the preparatory ‘port de bras’ (positioning of the arms) for one half hour… like this with the head, eyes, with the arm, open, close and return to the initial position. And again, and again, and again.
And we tried to understand what she wanted from us — we had already been doing this before her class every year. And yet this was something a little different.
… She illustrated, she explained, and most importantly she could … make you do what she wanted…
Agrippina Yakovlevna was some kind of phenomenon, and I was unbelievably fortunate…
… to this day, nothing has changed for me, to this day, in terms of Vaganova, in terms of our school. It’s possible, there are periods of highs and lows, there are periods when instructors are more or less talented, but a school is a school, and such a school as ours does not exist. From the time of my schooling in 1951, I believe in it as much now as I believed in it then.
– Irina Kolpakova
It is said, that Kolpakova loves the alphabet of movement, how a dance is constructed out of combination sequences… endlessly repeating movements to bring each dance step to perfection… losing track of time as before, when she herself danced.
Passed on through her great predecessor, the code of classical dance is a rare language that speaks through Kolpakova, whose timeless, relentless devotion to this highest art is perhaps an index that she carries something more than the usual packet of energy allotted to a mundane human life, an indication that she may very well be a channel through which pours the great force of knowledge brought into this world through the vehicle of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova.
“Thank god that I have the strength and desire to work. If there’s a desire, there’s strength… there’s some kind of energy there. Don’t know… but I want to work,” says Kolpakova with a priceless, almost forbidden smile coming over her face… as if she knows she is defying time itself.
Consultant: Anna Korotysheva
Far from the iconic image of a ‘ballet dancer’ herself, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century single-handedly created the system which serves as the foundation of classical ballet as we know it today.
The 10-year old girl from a poor family who would be considered an ‘ugly duckling’ by conventional standards, got into the Imperial ballet school in 1888, through a paid grant from the institution, available to children of families with low means.
With physical attributes not up to par in the ballet world and an independent and prickly character, her training and career as a dancer was rough. Vaganova was badly criticized by the legendary Marius Petipa who was then chief choreographer of the Russian theatre, and rejected by one of her most valued teachers because she did not possess the physical proportions so highly valued by the instructor.
Vaganova finally received her acclaim as a gifted technician after a phenomenon whereby an Italian ballerina performed an amazing move called a fouetté.
Everyone tried to replicate and understand this astonishing new move, but it was Vaganova who got it. In the graduation performance the committee noted her technical skill and accepted her into the Mariinsky Theatre. Eventually she became known as the queen of variations for her stand-out artistic skill and mastery of technique.
Vaganova went on to codify the extraordinary artform aesthetically rooted in math and physics, bringing into existence the educational system of classical ballet used the world over.
Today, the Imperial ballet school into which Agrippina Vaganova was accepted in 1888, carries her name, Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet and her book, Fundamentals of the Classical Dance (1934), remains the standard text for the instruction of ballet technique.
The renowned Vaganova Academy has been, and continues to be, an elite cradle producing extraordinary ballet dancers and celebrated artists of the world.
Underlying the unparalleled success of the Vaganova Academy are principles that build character and form identity – this is the real and greatest treasure of Vaganova’s legacy.
Vaganova’s students, and in turn, their students, a number of whom are legends in their own right, speak of receiving this most prized gift and how it has affected their lives, their nation and the world.