#vaganova exam

[elegantballetalk]

Today’s watch:

From student to prima ballerina

[tikitania]

For everyone who's been puzzled/annoyed/disliked Tsiskaridze's 7th grade ladies class at Vaganova, here's a place to commiserate:

I so appreciate Isabella's critiquing of this class and alarm raising. She's being quite polite, but she's not pleased and you can tell. Watch this and then watch a graduation exam circa 2000. WORLDS APART in terms of classicism, style, and purity. I'm alarmed. I'd love to see NT get "promoted" out of this job and handed a new role in the Bolshoi. If this is the direction of Vaganova, I'd track the corollary. How many Vaganova grads get a Mariinsky contract? Or does the theatre hiring more from BBA, Perm, Eifman, etc.

[tikitania]

Oof. Same. As these exams become more performative, I find myself yearning for pre-Tsiskaridze days when the exams were very hard, and you could spot flaws straightaway.

Also, why is he teaching a women’s class? He should focus on cultivating male talent because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of up-and-coming males dancers and this is a problem.

What did you think of Tsiskaridze's 7th grade class exam that's posted on the VBA youtube channel?

It doesn’t feel like a VBA exam tbh. It felt like a performance, and not an exam. Lots of wasted time changing formations when they could be showcasing the students’ skills. They were also en pointe too early but maybe that’s to show they’re stage ready once they graduate. Tl;dr I wasn’t a fan.

[ballet-symphonie]

Which ballet companies and which ballet schools you consider to be currently world best? I see often Paris Opera listed as a number one, but who much this is about because of its reputation and history and what do you think about Mariinsky and Bolshoi, is their level declined / declining? Thank you for really interesting and great blog!

The companies referred to as the best tend to be the oldest and historic ones, think big national companies like The Royal Ballet, Paris Opera, Bolshoi, Mariinsky, La Scala, Dutch National Ballet, Australian National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, San Francisco Ballet. Nowadays, I think its very hard to compete with the quality, emotional pull, and technical brilliance that comes out of the Royal Opera.

About Schools:

There are lots of good ones, Academie Princess Grace has to be near the top of the list. It's a finishing school, not a foundational one, but nearly everyone who graduates from there gets a job at a reputable company. They are also one of the few schools that has prioritized keeping its curriculum at the forefront of the dance world with a fantastic contemporary and neoclassical program.

I'm consistently impressed with the level of Royal Ballet graduates who have the skills and stability to rock up to any company and instantly demand attention. Look at Takumi Miyaki at ABT right now.

The level of talent coming out of South Korea in particular is absolutely stunning, schools like SunHwa, the YeWon School, and Korea National Arts University are producing complete, company-ready dancers left and right. Through the competition circuit, these schools are slowly starting to gain more international prestige.

I think BBA/MRAX has been in a state of disarray for a while now. Far less competent graduates, due to a lot of internal messiness in administration and a decrease in the rigor of acceptance with many 'paid' places. The level is just not there, especially if you go back and watch videos of exams from the 90s and 2000s. Now sure, many are still getting accepted into Bolshoi, but with the war....there isn't exactly a lot of choice in hiring. There are occasionally some bright lights, Kokoreva being the most notable recent grad, but they seem to be a rarity and not the norm.

Vaganova under Tsiskaridze has generally continued to produce decent female graduates- if you want to live and work in Russia. I pray Tsiskaridze goes back to coaching or teaching boys because the classwork shown by his class of girls left a lot to be desired. I think there are many better places to train for men, particularly after the retirement of some of the older, more experienced faculty. The casting in Mariinsky is already beginning to reflect this drop-off, performances are dominated by Kimin Kim, Nikita Korneyev, and Even Capitane, Timor Askerov - none of whom are VBA graduates. They've also been hiring graduates from Eifman- something they certainly weren't doing a decade ago. Compare their current videos to some of the talented students coming out of the US, Europe and South America...the level isn't always there. I'd urge a talented male student to consider John Cranko, Tanz Academie Zurich, or the Royal Ballet School. Stateside, Houston Ballet, The Rock School, and San Francisco Ballet have excellent programs.

[miss-mollys-ballet-blog]

Olesya Novikova in her 7th year Vaganova exam.

[mariaspir]

I just finished watching Tsiskaridze's 7th year exam... I have lots of opinions...

I did not like it.

1. The pointe shoes come on too early. They did the first small adage and the rest was en pointe. I am perhaps one of the few people on this earth who finds pointe shoes more easy to dance in than flats, pointe shoes have a rise and fall, there's an up and down, and these days the shoes help us both go up and stay up (I too wear Gaynor knock offs, I don't think it's "cheating", but it objectively is easier). They need the exercises to be done on half toes, it aids to the development on turnout through the way of using the floor, these are students, this is training, it should not be a performance. The legs aren't warm enough, pointe shoes come on AFTER allegro in the method for a reason. And movement quality gets lost, like what happened in fondu, also whole movements are lost, like flic-flac and reverse en ecarte.

2. Loss of technique: the girls jump lovely with height and ballon, but they land sloppily. Dirty fifths, turned in knees, weak batterie. All those things were crucial in the Vaganova style even a decade ago. If you go further back, in Somova or Novikova/Obraztsova graduation years, the allegro was textbook perfection, it was unreal how clean every movement was. This class was just okay; they jump strongly but that's about it. To me it seems like the teacher didn't insist on cleanliness, either excused it because of the added difficulty of the pointe shoes* or ignored it in favour of proving his choreographic talents (which are obviously wonderful, just not suited for a school exam).

*nobody cares if pointe shoes make it harder. If it can't be done well with them on, you should have the students take them off.

3. Loss of coordination in hands and arms: fairly obvious if you've watched enough Vaganova classes. There are moments where the arms are awkward because they don't have a clear place to be, they haven't been trained or paid attention to enough. Again, I blame the pointe shoes, these are students who are supposed to understand the use of user body in these final 3 years, yet they're told to forget what they were building towards, focus even more on footwork and nevermind the port de bras. Nikolay had naturally beautiful coordinated arms and I wonder if he can't pass that to his students because he never struggled with it.

4. Too much allegro too early: this was a men's class. I don't have a lot to say on this, it's quite straightforward. Some combinations were even the same as his past classes, lacking that feminine Vaganova grace because they were made for boys.

5. All this culminates into a Bolshoi style exam, Bolshoi style class, Bolshoi style dancers. Do that extra turn even though you are behind everyone else. Do all double fouettes even though you can't land it. Vaganova had that noble grace, polished simplicity. They were a corps de ballet, now everyone is dancing for themselves. Russians more than anyone know most students end up in the corps, and that's what they're trained for. Nikolay himself has said "careers are made in the theatre, school is for learning". You learn in a class, not in a choreography. Ballet discipline is learning to all be the same, do the exact same thing, even if you're Ulanova dancing next to cotton eye Joe.

I used to be a fan of Tsiskaridze's classes, now I truly feel like he'd be better off in Moscow, and Vaganova get a Vaganova trained dean. I wonder if Lopatkina is interested in teaching.

[c-g-t]

I think one of the reasons why vaganova exams now look less clean is literally just because the girls have less time to rehearse on their own because with Tsiskaridze they perform so much, so often due to rehearsals they finish after 8pm, so they literally don’t have time to work that much on those vaganova details.

That makes sense..I honestly thought the recent VBA grads looked sloppy just because of social trends (tricks over artistry) and what NT currently likes (taller, long limbed girls are popular with him and the ADs) but the fact that they’re rehearsing Fairy Doll and other shows till 8 pm makes sense too.

[balletomaneblog]

Thoughts on Jaden Grimm?

I haven't seen a lot of her so I don't have a fully formed opinion yet. I did see plenty from her graduation exam however and, like most of Kovaleva's class, she seemed technically very strong. I've also seen her perform a few variations over the years and think she shows great potential.

I don't think she's really developed an image/character in her dancing yet as much as some of the bigger name '23 grads have, which is probably one reason Tsiskaridze didn't really featured her in Vaganova performances. But she's still very young and has plenty of time for this.

I was very happy to hear that she was accepted into the Mariinsky Theatre and am looking forward to seeing how she develops and matures as a dancer. Hopefully, she is given opportunities to grow at the Mariinsky and we see plenty more of her.

[1is0]

Do you think Maria Khoreva regrets her fame? I’ve noticed she’s less active on YouTube now and has switched to Russian Telegram and Instagram. From what I’ve heard, she’s less respected in Russia due to her YouTube presence, though international fans love her for it. I feel for her because management seems to have overworked her, and an 18-year-old fresh out of school couldn’t have predicted that. She’s often criticized because of her fame, but I don’t see many flaws in her dancing. She’s not worse than other soloists or principals—everyone has room for improvement. Looking at her graduation exam and Vaganova performances, it’s clear she was top of her class. Do you think that if she could, she'd go back in time, and prevent this level of fame? (money aside)

hi anon! welcome to my page!

I think this is a good question for any dancer with a prominent media presence, so I’ll try to answer as best as I can (melmoth blog voice 🤣)

I can’t speak for someone else because you can never know that much about someone else’s life or career, no matter how publicized it is in the media, but I wouldn’t say she necessarily regrets her fame. she wouldn’t be the dancer she is today if it weren’t for her popularity amongst younger dancers, and I would argue that she’s been quite important in shaping the emerging generation of ballet dancers as a whole.

I’m in america, so I don’t know much about what the russian crowd thinks of her media presence, but as an intl fan and dance student, I have to say that I owe a lot of my dance progress to her youtube videos and her posts about her life in the theatre. I think for balletomanes around the world she’s created a platform that brings us together.

none of us can really know what goes on behind the scenes in terms of management, but I think that the theatre just recognizes the potential that masha has and they’re doing all they can to help her reach that level of stardom, and in a way they have. her career path isn’t that different from that of other graduates of the academy, who are often expected to be professionals immediately after they graduate school. I think it’s just a part of their career and something they’re trained and prepared for during their time at the vaganova.

in terms of technique, she was top of her class, and it shows. if you watch any of her dance videos you’ll see that her fame isn’t just because of her social media presence, but also because of her dance technique, which many balletomanes would argue is textbook perfect.

if she were to go back in time and change things, I think that if she saw the level of her impact on the lives of many dancers around the world, she’d be surprised at the positive influences she’s made not just on young dancers, but for everyone who loves ballet, and realize she’s doing better than she expected to. so no, I don’t think she’d change anything about her career.

[elegantballetalk]

yaroslavna kuprina's vaganova exam (all i can find)

https://youtu.be/br1Vehkf334?si=Bv8_HFBmm0zZlvNz

if you can't click on the link, it's on the youtube channel "vaganova blog". what are your views on her dancing?

Thank you for the video; I hadn’t seen it before.

My thoughts: Lovely, but very student-like, which is fine considering it’s an exam and meant to showcase technique, not personality. You can tell that Kuprina is in control of her body—she has command over her movements. However, compared to Kovaleva’s parallel class, she definitely seems less bold, which isn’t a bad thing; it’s just a characteristic.

What impresses me most is how “clean” she looks and how stable she is. Her footwork is very precise, and all the small linking steps between passes are neatly executed. I really like her legs and her attitude, but I do find her slightly lacking in torso expressiveness. The pirouettes are a bit lackluster, but they are clean—which I prefer over bold but messy turns.

I also like her body. I know one shouldn’t comment on this, but she looks slim without appearing frail, and toned without looking bulky.

As for the partnering, I don’t really have an opinion; it looks like most partnering exercises. I will say again that I really like the ease of her arabesque. I also love that, while obviously her leg is very high, it’s not distracting as it follows her line.

As you mentioned in the other ask, I’m not surprised she graduated with honors.

Here is a clickable link to the video: https://youtu.be/br1Vehkf334?si=Bv8_HFBmm0zZlvNz (Class of Yulia Kasenkova, 2023)

[tikitania]

Bolshoi academy seems to be the best at protecting its students from scrutiny. They barely post anything, Vaganova is somewhat the same, they do post more, but they are not putting the students in front of a camera as individuals, but as students.

Master ballet academy is insane. when I watch videos from their performance I can’t see the character, not necessarily because they can’t act or aren’t artistic, but because they have been overexposed to me— I can’t unsee their personality during performances.

True. I think Bolshoi is way more strategic. I remember when Eva Sergeenkova graduated, there was a gorgeous mini-documentary in the Russian online ballet magazine, La Personne. It was clear that she was going to be catapulted to the top of the Bolshoi:

The BBA releases a graduation performance every year, but it reminds me more of the Paris Opera Ballet one in which they students do a hybrid class / performance on stage but in their school uniforms. So they do expose their star students…but to a lesser degree. And Vaganova is….Vaganova! Its reputation looms large. But if you look on YouTube, not every years’ gradation exam is released. I’ve read that it up to the teacher’s discretion. So we see more Kovaleva classes, than say, Kasenkova or Sitnikova (who no longer teachers there.)

Clip of POB School:

And this is a really fun Ballet with Isabella video comparing Vaganova & BBA — and it’s Kokoreva’s graduation year:

[m-ercutio]

vaganova ballet academy, 1995

[patricedumonde]

Do you think Maria Khoreva regrets her fame? I’ve noticed she’s less active on YouTube now and has switched to Russian Telegram and Instagram. From what I’ve heard, she’s less respected in Russia due to her YouTube presence, though international fans love her for it. I feel for her because management seems to have overworked her, and an 18-year-old fresh out of school couldn’t have predicted that. She’s often criticized because of her fame, but I don’t see many flaws in her dancing. She’s not worse than other soloists or principals—everyone has room for improvement. Looking at her graduation exam and Vaganova performances, it’s clear she was top of her class. Do you think that if she could, she'd go back in time, and prevent this level of fame? (money aside)

Interesting introspective question. I’m not Maria but I actually think she doesn’t regret it. Her fame has enabled her to rise to the level of first soloist within years of her graduation, has given her countless soloist and principal roles, and has given her the opportunity to guest star in many illustrious galas. I don’t think she regrets it. I wouldn’t regret it if I were her either.

[ballet-symphonie]

In defence of tsiskaridze… he came to the school in 2015, which means he’s been rector for the whole time Koshkarova, Valiullina, Kuprina, Karamysheva, Gritsina, Barinova, Zakota, Solomina, Kishnova, Efimova and others were in the first grade. And they are beautiful dancers, like I think we are overestimating the changes happening. In addition to this, the class that Tsiskaridze took over was a “weak class” (I swear these are his own words from an video with Ilya), and they look good in the exam, even though it’s not pure vaganova. However we don’t know they’re day to day classes. We don’t know if during class they do plain vaganova pure exercises, and then tried something new and a bit bonkers just for the exam. I wouldn’t be surprised, and it would explain why the exam isn’t super clean, maybe they don’t do these crazy exercises every day, just they put on a show for their exam, which is objectively more fun to watch, and maybe it’s more fun for them to execute, like the little variation breaks? Bonkers, but fun! We can’t forget how passionate the Russians are about the art of ballet, they are so passionate and they are risk takers!

I'm not inclined to give Tsiskaridze undeserved credit. Of the four you named who are now relevant rising soloists, they all graduated under the guidance of Ludmila Kovaleva, the same woman who is responsible for Olga Smirnova, Kristina Shapran, Diana Vishneva, Maria Khoreva and Ekaterina Borchenko among other prominent dancers. Kovaleva has been producing world-class ballerinas for over 40 years, her teaching prowess and clear ability to transform students into ballerinas was well-known before Tsiskaridze ever stepped into his role at VBA.

I think Tsiskaridze's main abilities lie in coaching and administration. The way he developed Angelina Vorotsova as well as Denis Rodkin is proof of this. Furthermore, the way he's been able to raise the production quality of the VBA performances in terms of the staging, costuming and venue is remarkable, I'm not sure where he suddenly found the funds but he made it happen. In my opinion, based on the quality of his students, I don't think he's nearly as good a teacher- many great dancers aren't.

As someone who graduated from a prominent ballet academy and is now working professionally in a major theater, I can tell you that they absolutely spend significant amounts of their time in class practicing what they did during the exam. You can't suddenly do a full ballet class nonstop if it hasn't been practiced and rehearsed extensively. If they just suddenly decided to do a whole class of crazy combination sporadically or just for the exam, it would be a complete mess.

Furthermore, exams are not for fun, their purpose is not to entertain an audience. If you want to be entertained, go buy a ticket for a performance. The purpose of exams is to demonstrate the student's progress and assess their mastery of technique. It’s about highlighting consistent and structured training that builds discipline, strength, precision, and artistry over time. If the whole class is dancing better in 'normal classes' than in an exam, what does that say about their preparation for high-pressure moments when working for a ballet company. It suggests their foundation might not be as solid as it should be.

Especially in Russia, passing the state exam determines your grades, your diploma, and your ability to work in a state theater. I personally think it's harder to accurately assess the skill of each individual dancer when the exams are overly choreographed with complex formations that showcase some students and hide others. When exams are so critical to a dancer's future cannot simply be viewed as a showcase for "fun" or "flashiness"—they are fundamentally about the demonstration of technical mastery and readiness to join the professional world.

[melmothblog]

Future Princes of Ballet documentary

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