Eifman Ballet Academy official. Dance Academy under the direction of Boris Eifman
The walls of recreation rooms and ballet halls are made of translucent glass with high heat-saving, sound-insulating and aesthetic qualities. The floors in the ballet halls are finished with Harlequin stage linoleum. Harlequin creates a non-slip, smooth and resilient surface that provides comfort, safety and ideal light reflection. The floors are painted in various pastel colors; shining through the translucent walls, these shades give the atrium architecture a special flavor, lightness and airiness.
In contrast to the “airy” interiors, the outer perimeter of the complex is designed in traditional materials (brick, plaster). The façade of the former “Assembly” was restored in accordance with the author’s design in 1911. To its main decoration - the entrance niche-exedra - the name of the educational institution and a bas-relief made of brickwork with a QR code are added, in which statements about the art of dance are encrypted.
architectural and planning solutions:
New Academy buildings were erected on the site of demolished courtyard buildings. In the southern building, facing B. Pushkarskaya Street, there are residential premises for a boarding school for 135 people and a medical center. The northern building housed a well-equipped sports complex with a swimming pool and gym, classrooms, two ballet halls and administrative offices of the Academy.
The gap between the residential and educational buildings is designed in the form of a glazed atrium, where recreation alternates with twelve ballet halls. The largest of the ballet halls is designed for staging educational performances and demonstrating them to school guests and parents of students.
The internal atrium-play space goes back to the archetype of the schoolyard of a closed educational institution. Moreover, its layout has nothing to do with classical hierarchy and symmetry. Located at various elevations, the halls and recreation areas, in the figurative expression of Nikita Yavein, “dance in space.” They are connected together by a developed system of communications - stairs, elevators, transition galleries. One room can be reached in different ways. According to the authors of the project, the network model of organizing space with its flexible variability will contribute to the internal emancipation of students and encourage them to creative experiments.
The main entrance to the Academy is still from the street. Liza Chaikina, 2. The wooden mansion on B. Pushkarskaya, 14-a after restoration will house a media library, the Academy Museum and apartments for its guests. The surrounding garden became an open exercise yard for students.
Most of us are fascinated by the art form of ballet. Almost everyone in childhood was engaged in ballroom or folk dancing, choreography, etc., and now many continue to dance, choosing both more modern directions, such as modern, contemporary and wacking, and practicing for their own pleasure in ballet studios. It is no secret that 2018 in Russia will be dedicated to ballet, which represents the main cultural heritage of our country, as well as the bicentenary of the talented choreographer Marius Petipa.
But today we are talking about another great choreographer, perhaps the most famous choreographer of our time - Boris Yakovlevich Eifman.
The State Academic Ballet Theater of Boris Eifman is the only author's theater in Russia that develops the art of modern choreography. He not only created an original style, absorbing the achievements of modern art and based on the classical school, but also nurtured a team united by one spirit, for which there are no impossible tasks. Eifman creates examples of stage psychoanalysis. He strives to show the extreme state of man, considering the madness of his heroes not a disease, but the ability to penetrate into other worlds. This helps the choreographer expand the boundaries of his own imagination, demonstrating the fantasies of his characters, and delve into the most interesting questions of the spiritual and philosophical life of mankind.
Boris Eifman's desire to involve his audience in the inexhaustible world of human passions, to establish living spiritual connections with the public, to stun them with the brightness and dynamism of his plastic language - all this determined the success that has accompanied the Theater's performances at the world's leading theater venues for several decades. Creating his own style, Eifman develops various choreographic systems. The theater became a creative laboratory for him. The choreographer does not limit himself to the framework of a ballet performance, since the most important thing for him is theatricality. His productions are unforgettable performances that open up new forms and methods of dance performance. Boris Yakovlevich created his own theater - a theater of open emotional experiences.
If you have not yet watched his “Anna Karenina”, “Red Giselle”, “Roden”, as well as the new “Tchaikovsky. PRO et CONTRA”, be sure to do it. St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, as well as a large tour of Canada and America in May and June will give enthusiastic spectators and balletomanes the opportunity to enjoy magnificent productions.
But that's not all we wanted to talk about. Did you know that Boris Eifman, with the support of the Government of St. Petersburg, opened the Boris Eifman Dance Academy, which has no analogues in Russia?
What makes it unique? Let's start with the place where it is located: in one of the old quarters of the Petrograd side, where in house No. 2 on Liza Chaikina Street (former cinema “Assembly”, 1913, architect F.A. Korzukhin) the rehearsal base of the Academic Theater was already located . Next door, on the street. Bolshaya Pushkarskaya, 14, there was another architectural monument - the mansion of Yu. Dobbert/Shteikman with a garden (1896, architect A.Ya. Reinberg). This rare example of a wooden mansion in St. Petersburg, which miraculously survived in the body of the city, was purchased from the owners and transferred to the Dance Academy for perpetual use. The designer was Studio 44, known for such projects as the reconstruction of the General Staff of the Hermitage, the Kazakh National Academy of Choreography in Astana, the Museum of Science and Technology in Tomsk and others. By the way, they received several awards for their work on the Academy building.
Residential block boarding school for non-residents and children from low-income families, a canteen, a medical center, sports and gyms, a swimming pool, 14 ballet halls, classrooms and administrative premises. Education at the academy is free, since this budget educational institution is funded by the Government of St. Petersburg. The founders are the Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg and the Committee for Education.
If the first of September is the Day of Knowledge, then the last days of August at the Academy should be called “Days of Meetings and Hugs” 😍🤗 ⠀ We haven’t entered the Academy yet, but just on the way to the metro on the street, the daughter smiles at someone, runs to hug, on the go exchanges major news. Girls hug everywhere - at check-in at the boarding school, at the annual polonaise rehearsal, just at the entrance to the Academy. After all, they didn’t just come running from the neighboring yard - they came from different parts of the country: the further the distance, the more news 😉 ⠀ “And this is our teacher in...”, “And this is our teacher...” - quick explanations after hugs or curtsies. It seems that everyone here knows everyone by name and is so sincerely happy to meet you, as if this is the most beloved, but far away relative 🤗 ⠀ A familiar phrase from childhood: “And how well they have recovered!! And they got tanned!!” - this is not the most successful greeting, it is better to save only the second part of it, because the school year begins and you need to be in shape 👌 Over the summer, the Academy itself has changed and grown!! The main entrance to the Children's Dance Theater is now a real decoration of Petrogradka, multimedia screens with views of St. Petersburg, the modern architecture of the new building is like a light new touch among the ancient buildings. It’s absolutely impossible to pass by and not stop! Now classes will be in new classes, and in the fall the Boris Eifman Children's Dance Theater will officially open - the dream of any city 🙏 ⠀ New special and school subjects, new teachers, a new schedule and even new dress cardigans - all this is the beginning of the school year! There really is nothing here! ⠀ So - “Happy New Year!” Health, inspiration, strength, attentiveness, patience and, of course, light legs to everyone!😉🙏 @mariia.dodonova (c)
01.09.2019 22:51:14
Today, a pedagogical council was held at the Boris Eifman Dance Academy. Lali Otarovna Afanasyeva summed up the results of last year, presenting a detailed analysis of educational activities for 2018-2019. The director of the Dance Academy noted that over seven years, we have all managed to organize the educational process as efficiently as possible. “Despite the high employment of students in special disciplines, students continue to demonstrate high results in general education subjects and successfully pass the OGE.” New employees were presented to the council, and at the moment the Boris Eifman Dance Academy is 100% provided with teaching staff. Lali Otarovna shared her plans for the upcoming school year with her colleagues, wishing health and talented students!
01.09.2019 22:49:34
Yuri Burlaka, artistic director of the Boris Eifman Dance Academy about the heritage of classical dance and its synthesis with other areas of choreographic art: “Without knowing the basics and without having a base, it is impossible to build anything new. Throughout the history of art and theater, attempts to cross out everything that was created earlier and reveal something that has not yet existed have been encountered many times. All of them turned out to be unsuccessful, because it is impossible to ignore the enormous legacy that is left to us from the Russian Imperial Theater and from the theater of Marius Petipa. We understand that Petipa, as a great choreographer, also influences modern ballet art, because the basis of any educational program at choreographic schools, and then ballet theaters (whether small or large troupes) are classical performances. At the same time, I also understand that any theater is, first of all, a balance of repertoire. It should consist of a classical part and a modern part, the performances of which can be built on different types of technology, including classical dance.”
01.09.2019 22:46:01
Boris Yakovlevich Eifman held a working meeting on the occasion of the beginning of the school year. Having greeted the teachers of special disciplines, Boris Yakovlevich introduced Yuri Petrovich Burlaka as the artistic director of the Academy of Dance and the future Children's Dance Theater: “Yuri Petrovich Burlaka, Honored Artist of Russia, a graduate of the class of the famous professor Pyotr Pestov, led the ballet troupe of the Bolshoi Theater - a specialist of the highest class in terms of techniques. He is immersed in classical dance, knows how to revive and restore the foundations of the classical repertoire, and is able to build a path from knowledge to practice, and therefore to results!” Yuri Burlaka: “The Boris Eifman Dance Academy is my new creative home. And I hope that I will be useful to both my colleagues and children, so that later they will carry through their entire performing career what they received here. I am very glad that I am here, among you, in close creative contact. I'm open." There have also been personnel changes in the leadership of the Academy. The position of deputy head of management for special disciplines has been introduced, which is occupied by Yuri Yurievich Usachev. His terms of reference will include providing educational and methodological documentation for the educational process of subject-cycle commissions. Creation, analysis and theoretical justification. New teachers were introduced: 📍classical dance: Angelina Georgievna Alexandrova, Irina Nikolaevna Guseva, Elena Efimovna Selivanova, Ruben Vladimirovich Bobovnikov, Andrey Valentinovich Ivanov, Zvezdana Gennadievna Martina (historical and everyday dance), Andrey Petrovich Bosov (duet-classical dance, acting ); 📍modern dance: Balash Baranay. Boris Yakovlevich spoke about the opening of the theater, about performances and plans for the next year (and even the year ahead), inspiring the entire administrative and teaching staff to new professional and creative victories: “A teacher is a person, and the ability to work with children, to make them fall in love with yourself, and through this love to lead them to a profession is an important mission. Without love for children and without children’s love for the teacher, respect, trust and Love, as such, nothing will work.”
01.09.2019 22:45:11
Vivid footage of the participation of students and high school students of the Academy in the choreographic performance of the July session of the OC “SIRIUS” “The Magic World of Dance. Spain in the ballet theater." “I thank every teacher for training young talents. I am sure that your graduates will continue to develop the ballet school and will be known all over the world, just as our domestic ballet dancers are known. New professional achievements!” – Elena Shmeleva, head of the Talent and Success Foundation and the Sirius Educational Center, congratulated the young artists and teachers from the stage.
01.09.2019 22:15:44
A flexible torso, flexibility, jump, expressive arm movements, beautifully shaped legs and physical strength, and let’s add tall height and charisma - and you have a gorgeous ballet dancer! Do you see the makings of a dancer in your child? Don’t even hesitate and come to the exams! Enrollment for men's classes is still open. Details on the official website of the Academy in the “Admissions” section.
10.07.2019 15:29:18
Test lessons on plastic expression complete the cycle of annual exams at the Boris Eifman Dance Academy. In grades 2/6, students actively work on developing acting energy. It is based on biomechanical exercise and observations of living nature and its inhabitants. For the first time, the children are faced with the task of not just meaningful and expressive movement, but also existence in a special “inhuman” plasticity. Teacher: Anna Ibragimovna Tugusheva Photographer: Evgeny Matveev @matveev.ballet
28.05.2019 15:55:03
The Boris Eifman Dance Academy summed up the results of its big spring internship. It was attended by 78 elementary school students who went through on-site preliminary screenings in 38 Russian regions. Young guests had the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the educational process of the Academy: for 3 days they were given classes in classical and modern dance, rhythm plastics, gymnastics, and music. On the final day, young talents presented dance numbers that they had prepared at home to a strict commission. As a result of the internship, 31 people received an invitation to become students of the Dance Academy. Congratulations! See you in the new academic year!
27.05.2019 15:46:37
All-Russian Library Day is celebrated annually on May 27. We congratulate the head of the library of the Dance Academy, Victoria Evgenievna Shvaiko, and her faithful assistant Ekaterina Baksheeva on their professional holiday! Maxim Gorky wrote: “Love a book, it will make your life easier, it will amicably help you sort out the motley and stormy confusion of thoughts, feelings, events, it will teach you to respect people and yourself, it inspires your mind and heart with a feeling of love for the world, for man.”
27.05.2019 14:56:35
Happy birthday, St. Petersburg! Viktor Sokolov (member of the Russian Writers' Union) Symphony of Gray Petersburg. Escaping from glamor and vanity by the Harmony of Baroque and Empire, My Petersburg is far from the bustle of the capital's unbridled feast. I love St. Petersburg houses - Not monuments, no, simple houses - They stand like book volumes, And in each volume there is the truth about Russia. My Petersburg! I love the halftones of Your ancient elongated streets. It was as if the hands of a genius touched - And every string began to sound, pouring into the song of the slow Neva, Hiding the rebellious nature. The bronze king flips through the score, And the pensive lions listen to the Symphony of gray-haired Petersburg And the bursts of the Atlantic winds. The magical power of the demiurge In the prophecy: “Beauty, city of Petrov!..” In the photograph of Dmitry Ascheulov, 1st year students of the Boris Eifman Dance Academy Anna Osipova and Alina Gorshkova.
The Boris Eifman Dance Academy officially opened on September 2, 2013 in St. Petersburg. The school semester countdown began that same day. And now, at the end of January, Eifman sums up some results, sums up what has been achieved over five months. One of the small achievements is that Academy students took part in his new play “Requiem,” which we have already written about. And the day after the premiere, we were able to visit this unique educational complex, located on the Petrograd side at the address - Liza Chaikina Street, building 2.
The guides were the director of the B. Eifman Ballet Theater, Gennady Grigorievich Albert, and the director of the B. Eifman Dance Academy, Lali Otarovna Afanasyeva. Boris Yakovlevich himself joined the excursion for journalists at the very end, talking about how he sees the future of the graduates of the newborn Academy.
Three buildings in two years
“Construction” of the turnkey school took a little more than two years. At the end of December 2010, the building on Liza Chaikina Street ceased to be the Theater’s rehearsal base - the troupe, together with the administration, moved to Gagarinskaya Street (house 32), and in December 2012 the builders put the premises into operation.
The new buildings of the educational institution are located in the block bounded by Bolshoy Prospekt of the Petrogradskaya Side, Bolshaya Pushkarskaya, Liza Chaikina and Vvedenskaya streets. The total area of the Academy's premises is 12,000 square meters. m.
The Academy ensemble includes the Dobert-Steikman mansion, a monument of wooden architecture of the 19th century, located on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya.
Also, to implement the project, the building of the cinema "Assembly" on L. Chaikina Street with a Doric portico was demolished (it was in it that the theater troupe rehearsed for many years in a row), but its ceremonial appearance was reproduced as the main facade of the Academy building, in accordance with the 1913 project.
The executors of this grandiose project are Studio 44, led by Nikita Yavein, who will soon build a school theater for Eifman, adding another building to the existing complex of buildings. It’s hard to believe that there will be room for anything else in this small space, but given Yavain’s experience of “fitting” a new building into a given scale, there is no doubt that everything will work out.
Ballet aquarium
A notable feature of the Academy complex is its impenetrability from the outside and absolute openness from the inside.
From the outside it looks more like a harsh boarding school, but inside it looks like a museum of modern art, in which there are no exhibits, but children live.
The internal layout of the school is based on the “aquarium principle” so that teachers can at any time control the movement of children from the dormitory to the classroom, or from the atrium to the rehearsal room. Glass here is combined not with its usual neighbor - concrete, but with stylish Finnish brick and natural wood.
Pistachio-colored glass walls and a wooden staircase leading far to the top - these beauties start right “from the hanger”, visible from the glass dressing room foyer.
School in numbers
The school is designed for 250 students. Currently, 90 people are studying here - 48 children aged seven years, and 42 children aged 10-11 years. It is expected that the former will spend 11 years within the Academy’s walls, and the latter – 7 years and 8 months. The older ones began their education right from the fifth grade.
In the next academic year, Eifman plans to enroll 50 “recruits” - 25 each for the senior and junior streams.
In the pilot set, Eifman was somewhat “out of schedule,” as Lali Otarovna said, and enrolled 90 children instead of 72. The choreographer picked up the qualifying relay at the third, actually ballet, stage.
In total, the Academy received 5,000 applications
from parents of children from the Leningrad region, Krasnodar, Sakhalin, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Izhevsk, Sochi. Before the first round, the children were carefully measured and their growth index was compiled. In the first round, the children’s artistic abilities were assessed, in the second round, various medical indicators were studied. The children were examined by specialist doctors: surgeons, orthopedists, ophthalmologists, and were selected from 5000 - 1400.
The third round is dance.
And since most of the children had good dance training before the school exams, many capable children entered the third round. Boris Yakovlevich, who personally examined the children in this round, could not part with some capable applicants, and as a result, 18 children were accepted over the limit.
One day in the life of a ballet student
Both directors never tire of repeating that the curriculum for those who began studying in the first grade is experimental in nature. And the program is structured so that at intermediate stages a student who, for some reason, cannot cope, or whose physical capabilities no longer meet the standards, can painlessly transfer to a comprehensive school or to a school with a different profile.
The day at the Eifman Academy begins at 9 am and ends at 18.00.
St. Petersburg children are taken by their parents, visitors stay in the boarding school (currently 32 people live in the boarding school). The first half of the day is devoted to general education subjects - Russian, mathematics, etc., the second half - to gymnastics, rhythm, music. The latter is given an important place - from the first grade, children have three musical subjects.
Gymnastics classes are based on methods borrowed from the Irina Viner International Sports Academy. A famous methodologist was invited from there. In the first two years, children are not taught classical dance; the emphasis is on rhythmic and plastic education (acrobatics, gymnastics, acting, modern dance).
Starting with modernity, and not with classics, is part of the experiment that is taking place at the Eifman Academy.
Probably, time will make its own adjustments; in any case, the experiment is under serious control.
During the break between blocks of general education subjects and special ones, children have lunch, relax in the pool (they have two coaches at their disposal who teach swimming) or watch a movie in the atrium.
Geography of the interior
A spacious atrium divides the building into two parts - on the right side there is a catering unit and a boarding school, on the left there are 14 ballet classes with multi-colored floors.
Classes are equipped with modern sound and video equipment. One of the ballet halls has now been converted into a music classroom. On the ground floor there is a sports complex, a swimming pool, and a gym. High-quality physiotherapy equipment has been purchased and is awaiting its commissioning.
One man band
Among the classical dance teachers, Marina Osipova was noticed. She is one of the most brilliant male dance teachers of her generation. I recently defended a brilliant dissertation on classical dance methods. Five minutes spent in her class at the Academy was enough to understand what pearl Boris Yakovlevich “stole” from the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet at the very beginning of the school year.
In general, productions of amazing quality happened at the ARB twenty years ago - artistic directors (Vyacheslav Samodurov - artistic director of the Yekaterinburg Ballet, Alexey Miroshnichenko - artistic director of the Perm Ballet), and prima ballerinas (Ulyana Lopatkina, etc.), and now - Marina Osipova - came from there. smart teacher.
I will describe a small emergency that happened on the day when the journalists were given a tour. The accompanist, who was supposed to work in Osipova’s class, fell ill, and she herself, as usual crawling “at the feet” of the students, controlling their inverted “fifths,” turned into an accompanist, singing and clapping the rhythm. Just leaving her hall, we noticed some strangeness in the music playing in this lesson.
Eifman's word
The head of the Academy, Boris Eifman, told reporters about the freedom of choice that will be given to graduates. Considering the absolutely free form of education at the Academy (including three meals a day for all children without exception),
the graduate will have to work for at least three years in one of the state dance or ballet theaters of Russia.
It is clear that Eifman will try to interest the best graduates in working in his theater, but he will not force anyone. Eifman also said that a school theater will be built in the Academy’s courtyard, where not only reporting concerts will be held, but also choreography workshops. It is still difficult to say in what form they will take place, but most likely we are talking about displays of works by high school students who will discover a penchant for choreographing dances.
Eifman also emphasized that the school he built is a completely new type of school, unlike all other ballet schools.
Therefore, comparing his Academy with the Moscow State Academy of Arts or the ARB is completely pointless. Behind the ARB there is a centuries-old tradition, and behind the new school there is nothing so far except the unshakable authority of Eifman and his artistic flair. It seems that he himself did not even expect to receive what he received as a result from the hands of the city and N. Yavein, and the training program at his Academy was adjusted and will be adjusted further, based, among other things, on the uniqueness of the architectural design.
Boris Eifman Dance Academy
The Boris Eifman Dance Academy, inaugurated in the fall of 2013, again came to my attention. My first report about this school was full of admiration for such a well-organized specialized educational institution. This fall I was surprised when... My third report about this school appeared after the former teacher of this Academy, Marina Osipova, contacted me. What she said (and what parents and teachers also added) may seem like black PR or vile slander. Draw your own conclusions.
(picture taken from the Internet)
As you know, I have a fierce reciprocity with Boris Yakovlevich Eifman. Moreover, I love everything he does so much that from the outside it seems as if I am pursuing him and inventing all sorts of slanderous stories, which are then carried by enemy voices. On the other hand, I’m ready to hear anything from my loved one, as long as he says it! Therefore, I present to your attention another black slanderous story.
Boris Yakovlevich has a unique gift: he lights up everyone who works next to him. Everyone is happy to be next to him, breathe the same air with him and watch the Genius create Great Art. True, later many (and I know quite a number of people who worked with Boris Yakovlevich) admitted that there were two happiest days in their lives: the first - when they went to work for Boris Yakovlevich, and the second - when they quit Boris Yakovlevich’s establishment . But everyone who talks about working with him (no matter how many happy days there were in their life - already two or one more), everyone’s eyes light up, there is a blush on their cheeks, and their hearts beat faster. From belonging. So, the story told below was told to me by a man who had two happy days in his life.
Boris Yakovlevich organized a ballet school and became its artistic director. He built a well-organized school on Liza Chaikina Street. He invited excellent classical dance teachers who danced in leading theaters and received teaching diplomas from the Academy of Russian Ballet named after A.Ya. Vaganova. Organized enrollment of children in two classes - children aged 7 and 11 were admitted to the school. Workdays began. And already in the very first year of training, the young “Eifman students” took part in the creative process: Boris Yakovlevich took his first-year students to the premiere of the ballet “Requiem” (to the music of Shostakovich) - the children came out in the finals and meaningfully extended their hands to the sky. The audience in the hall wiped away their tears (the performance was shown on the day of the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad), the parents were touched, Boris Yakovlevich forged new traditions...
The new school was declared as a competitor to the citadel of classical ballet - the Academy named after A.Ya. Vaganova. In words, Boris Yakovlevich valued academic training above all else in future graduates, and then readiness for his plastic experiments. To do this, he invited reputable classical dance teachers to the school, who had undergone double strict training on Rossi Street - first they graduated as ballet dancers, and then, after finishing their dancing career, they graduated from the Faculty of Pedagogy and became classical dance teachers. The teachers eagerly set to work - they were inspired by the school, the personality of Boris Yakovlevich, and the joy of creating something new. But by the third year of the school's existence, some problems began. The teachers taught classical dance to children too well: several students from the Eifman school successfully passed the entrance examination and entered the oldest ballet school on Zodchego Rossi Street. What in another educational institution would have been perceived as an indicator of high professionalism, the administration of the school on Liza Chaikina Street considered it a disaster and explained it as the machinations of competitors.
Boris Yakovlevich began to reproach classical dance teachers that they “teach the classics too well” and excessively follow Vaganova’s methodology. But he doesn’t need classical ballerinas; “Swan Lake” is not expected in the repertoire of Boris Eifman’s theater. And ballet education at school began to be “repurposed”. The school began classes in gymnastics and acrobatics, invited two acrobatics teachers who know well how to educate athletes, but poorly understand the peculiarities of training ballet dancers, they are interested in “standards” and sports categories. Moreover, grades in acrobatics were equated in importance to grades in the specialty, and if a student did not demonstrate outstanding acrobatic abilities, then his dancing future was questioned. And the children began to master “cartwheels” (including on one hand), somersaults, flip-flops and other gymnastic tricks. And soon the children began to suffer injuries: their knees flew off, their necks were twisted, a tear in the shoulder joint muscle was recorded, and a microtear in the groin muscle was recorded. Undoubtedly, in 8 years, when these acrobatic dancers graduate, Boris Yakovlevich will compose something grandiose, with double somersaults, but for now... Parents are trying to reach out to the school administration, headed by director Lali Otarovna Afanasyeva, with requests to at least somehow adjust acrobatics classes with classical classes dance - after all, they sent their children to a ballet school, not a sports school. But the conversation is short: “If you don’t like it, take the documents!” Some parents followed this “advice.”
Teachers of special disciplines could not calmly look at the torment of their students, because for them the students’ injuries were as if they were their own. All attempts to meet with Boris Yakovlevich, to explain the excessiveness of acrobatic exercises, which are both detrimental to health and to the detriment of the dance profession, ended in nothing - they were already stopped at the outset by L.O. Afanasyeva. Gymnastics teachers continue to teach ballet school students how to do a cartwheel with one hand and practice somersaults. But the teachers who most actively opposed acrobatics have now been fired.
And they were fired in Boris Yakovlevich’s favorite manner - they were simply thrown out into the street for invented and falsified reasons. Among them is Marina Osipova, who has worked at the school since its opening. Oh, you can’t work for Boris Yakovlevich with sparkling eyes and a desire to work - first they will load you with additional unpaid work to justify your work enthusiasm, and then they will expose you, and even accuse you of unprofessionalism.
When the school was officially opened, Boris Yakovlevich was the hero of the day - he received guests, showed off his brainchild, posed in front of cameras. But any public school (and Boris Eifman’s dance school is public, and the funds for it come from the budget of St. Petersburg, and not from the personal pocket of Boris Yakovlevich) must go through all sorts of nasty bureaucratic authorities in the form of licensing and accreditation. The business consists of writing kilograms of instructions, training programs, methods and other things. Moreover, everything had to be written very quickly and not for two classes, but for the entire eight- and eleven-year training cycle. And present programs for subjects that will be taught in another five years (say, duet dance). In total, there were 28 such subjects. And Mrs. Osipova (who has a candidate of pedagogical sciences degree), in addition to teaching, preparing and conducting lessons, and rehearsing numbers for reporting concerts, wrote, created and developed these programs. Boris Yakovlevich was very grateful to the teacher and, in commemoration of her merits (after a successful licensing procedure), elevated her to the rank of deputy artistic director and head of the department of classical dance. But in 2015, Marina Osipova very carelessly spoke out about the need for intensive acrobatics training. Boris Yakovlevich did not tolerate freethinking. And the results of teaching classical disciplines, as already mentioned, upset Mr. Eifman: several boys left the Creator's school and entered their competitors - the Academy of Russian Ballet.
Boris Yakovlevich challenged the honored teachers of classics that “something new” should be introduced into teaching, “more expression” should be given. In his opinion, Vaganova’s method is ungodly outdated, graduates of the Academy of Russian Ballet who come to his theater need to be retrained for a long time, and in general, “make me Sylvie Guillem!” Apparently, Boris Yakovlevich was promised to make Sylvia Guillem by Alena Klochkova, a graduate of the Novosibirsk Choreographic School, a former soloist of the Mikhailovsky Theater, and a holder of a higher education diploma from the Lesgaft Academy of Physical Culture. It was she who took the place of Marina Osipova in the fall of 2015. Moreover, having fired Marina Osipova with numerous violations of the law, the administration of the academy was led, no, not by B.A. Eifman, and with director Lali Otarovna Afanasyeva she does not disdain anything, even forgeries and falsifications. To the point that they claim that Marina Osipova did not work at all either as Eifman’s deputy for art, or as the head of the department. All information about her was erased from the site, but a notarized screenshot and numerous photo albums remained, where Ms. Osipova is listed as a deputy and head of the department, and which the academy administration is trying in every possible way to present as “fake.”
Marina Osipova filed a lawsuit against her former employer. I think we still have a lot of interesting things to learn about the ballet school of Boris Yakovlevich Eifman.
Parents' opinion(they wanted to act as witnesses at the trial, but the judge refuses to call the plaintiff ): We want to convey to everyone: the director of the Academy, Lali Otarovna Afanasyeva, is a terrible person! And, unfortunately, Boris Yakovlevich Eifman spends very little time at the Academy himself, having given decisions on many issues, incl. and creative, into the hands of an incompetent person. It was L.O. Afanasyeva decides: what is right in teaching and what is not, it is she who determines who will work at the Academy and who will not. After all, injuries are precisely because of the director’s incompetence; it is she who determines the people who are beneficial to her and who interferes with her (and she cares little about professionalism). She has the decisive vote in assessing the physical characteristics of children and their dancing ability, although she has an economic (!) education. We, the parents of the students, hope only for Boris Yakovlevich himself, who will return professionals to the Academy, and the children will have the opportunity to appear on the great stage with him without injury, but only with sparkling eyes and a smile on their face. We believe: the Academy is one of the greatest creations of Boris Yakovlevich.
Opinion of a classical dance teacher (asked not to disclose his name). The first 2.5 years of the life of the new B. Eifman Dance Academy showed that something was wrong in it... Workers of all ranks are constantly being fired, starting with security guards and ending with teachers of special disciplines: in two years, 12 (!) teachers were fired, “undesirable” » doctors and even nurses are announced. Subjects that were initially declared necessary for the birth of a “new universal dancer from the future” suddenly become ineffective and abbreviated (“historical dance”, “hip-hop”, “ballroom dance”, “introduction to classical dance”, Knyazev gymnastics and etc.). Many of the children of the first indicative intake were expelled for professional incompetence or left on their own: out of 80 people, more than twenty left the Academy! So what is the root of the problems? The first, the President of the Academy B. Eifman, nurtured the idea of creating a new dance school for many years (and even named it after himself), but he was never able to clearly formulate the concept of its development. Secondly, he entrusted administrative rule to Lali Otarovna Afanasyeva, who is guided by the rule of the Roman pontiffs “divide and conquer”. If she had ruled over the economic part, maybe everything would have worked out. However, Ms. Afanasyeva takes an active part in discussions of professional issues, which makes specialist teachers perplexed. But, unfortunately, they are forced to remain silent, because... “disobedience” is punishable by law, or, more precisely, “by concept.” As you know, the atmosphere is created by the leader. So there is an oppressive atmosphere at the Dance Academy, a fear of being “humiliated and insulted.” Moreover, the latter include both students and their teachers. Sad…
Note from the compiler: Of course, everything said above is in the nature of subjective notes, and does not aim to denigrate the bright image of B.Ya. Eifman, his wonderful school and its highly educated director L.O. Afanasyeva.
