November 5, 1997
Russians Are Springing Up All Over; Few medium and large American ballet
troupes lack emigres.
By JENNIFER DUNNING
Ellen Tharp wanted to start a ballet company on Staten Island. But where
to find dancers? A Russian cabdriver who had been an engineer at home
gave her an idea. Why not advertise in Novoye Russkoye Slovo, the
Russian-language newspaper, and on Russian cable television? The
response was overwhelming.
Many of the dancers had performed with leading dance companies in
Russia. ''Most were living in Brighton Beach and working in
nightclubs,'' Ms. Tharp recalled in an interview at her studio in the
New Dorp Moravian Church. ''I got two beautiful Moiseyev boys, a Bolshoi
boy, two Kirov girls, another boy from the Bolshoi Opera and a girl from
a Georgian ballet company. They spoke almost no English. We communicated
in ballet language.''
Only one of the original Russian recruits will dance when the Staten
Island Ballet performs on Saturday at Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College,
on 68th Street between Lexington and Park Avenues in Manhattan. ''Right
now I'm really low on Russians,'' Ms. Tharp, who is not related to the
choreographer Twyla Tharp, said. But they come and go and she knows they
will return. ''There is such a supply of them,'' her husband, Paul,
said.
The dancers pouring by the score into the United States from Russia and
the countries that once made up the Soviet Union are performing,
teaching and even running companies, filling the ranks of troupes from
New York to California and from Minnesota to Texas. They are not the
first Russian dancers to immigrate, or even the most notable or gifted.
Immersed in the traditions of czarist and Soviet classical ballet, they
have much to give American ballet but also much to learn. What stands
out about them is their number.
''The calls and videos are endless, endless,'' Martin Fredmann, director
of the Colorado Ballet and a leading ballet Russophile, said with a
groan that was not entirely unhappy. ''And my dancers give me more
videos and resumes. I have a big box marked 'Russians.' ''
The current westward flow of Russian dancers began in an atmosphere of
relative relaxation in 1990, a year before the dissolution of the Soviet
Union. ''That was the first year Russian dancers could sign contracts,''
said Eldar Aliev, a former member of the Kirov Ballet who now directs
Ballet Internationale of Indianapolis. ''Before that, we belonged to the
company.'' Now there were choices, Mr. Aliev said, though they often had
to be fought for. From early in this century, Russian dancers have
dropped out during American tours to settle in the United States and
teach or start companies of their own. The age of the great Soviet
defectors began with Rudolf Nureyev in 1961 and continued into the
mid-1970's with Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov and other dancers
from the leading Soviet companies, the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets.
A look at the original cast of a 1971 Kirov version of ''The Creation of
the World,'' which was revived by its choreographers Natalya Kasatkina
and Vladimir Vasiliyov for presentation last month by Ballet
Internationale, suggests the extent of the outflow. Three of its four
leads -- Mr. Baryshnikov, Valeri Panov and Irina Kolpakova -- have since
established careers in the West. The fourth, Yuri Soloviyev, died a
suicide in the Soviet Union in 1977.
The restaging was the idea of Eldar Aliev, who joined the Indianapolis
company in 1992 and became its artistic director in 1994. Mr. Aliev
insists that he has no interest in creating ''a little copy of the
Bolshoi or the Kirov.'' Eight of his 25 dancers are Russian.
A third of the 33 dancers in the Colorado Ballet are Soviet-trained, and
the company has three Russian teachers, three Russian pianists and one
Russian balletmaster. Eight of American Ballet Theater's 77 dancers are
Russian. A small company called the Russian Ballet was founded in 1995
in Wilmington, Del., with a core of stranded Russians from the touring
Donetsk Ballet of the Ukraine.
In a random sampling of 20 medium and large ballet troupes in 18 states,
only 5 have no Russian dancers, teachers or ballet masters. Eleven have
more than one Russian member, and the number jumps to 18 at the Colorado
Ballet. Most of the dancers are male principals or soloists with some
performing experience with the Bolshoi and Kirov. Many drift from
company to company, perform as guest artists with more than one troupe
or teach at several schools.
A Hunger to Learn New Kinds of Dance
Dmitri Kouznetsov, a hip 25-year-old member of the Colorado Ballet,
performed with two other troupes before moving to Denver last year. He
immigrated five years ago, in part because of his curiosity about the
United States and to avoid military conscription. At home in Tblisi,
Georgia, he danced three performances every week and had his own coach.
''There is not so much time to learn stuff here and not so many
performances,'' he said. He was encouraged to come by a Georgian friend
who had danced at a Jackson, Miss., competition and stayed on to direct
Ballet Mississippi for a year.
The earlier lure of artistic freedom has been replaced by a hunger for
new kinds of dancing. Vladimir Malakhov is performing with Ballet
Theater at City Center this week and next in works by Balanchine and
Mark Morris, for example, and will dance with a former Alvin Ailey star,
Desmond Richardson, in a new piece by the Spanish choreographer Nacho
Duato. Mr. Malakhov will return the favor with the all-Russian
''Diaghilev Celebration'' on Nov. 17 at the New York State Theater, in
which he will perform with Igor Zelensky, a Bolshoi dancer who danced
recently with the New York City Ballet.
And the eight Russian dancers in the Wilmington troupe will perform a
somewhat unorthodox new version of ''The Nutcracker'' by Robert LaFosse,
a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, in December.
''I would like to stay here and dance,'' Mr. Kouznetsov said. ''It has
been hard sometimes. The language, the different culture. But I'd like
to experience more styles here, dance Balanchine and modern and jazz.''
The Russian dancers at the Colorado Ballet will soon learn Martha
Graham's ''Appalachian Spring.'' In the spring, Ballet Internationale
will perform Agnes de Mille's ''Rodeo'' and Paul Taylor's ''Company B,''
inspired by the wartime Andrews Sisters songs to which the dance is set.
The United States is still seen as the land of gold-paved streets. ''It
is hard for them to understand that money isn't there for dance as it is
in Russia,'' Mr. Fredmann said. ''They don't understand they have to be
responsible for their art here, signing autographs and doing school
performances. You have to be willing to go out and beg, to give your art
away.
''The first thing the Russian boys do when they get here is buy the
biggest, most outrageous American used cars that get eight miles to a
gallon and break down all the time. They all have accidents. As the
years go on, the cars get smaller and smaller and more practical.''
Mr. Fredmann has become a keen observer of the Russians' integration
into the United States. Speaking of the male dancers, he reflected,
''They have to have things. Dancing becomes secondary, but it is the
only thing they know how to do. The women we've had really work hard.
They want to dance. But the men were being brought up at a time when
their country was falling apart. It is a lost generation, especially the
men. They seem not to care to dance, though I'm not sure that they just
don't want to show their feelings.''
Ms. Tharp has been told by some of her Russian dancers that they are
afraid to return to their country for fear the borders will again close.
They also fear black-market crime. She still shudders over an incident
that revealed to her the desperate poverty and economic confusion the
dancers have left behind.
A gifted Russian ballerina auditioned for the Staten Island company,
bringing along her husband, who spoke what Ms. Tharp describes as
''restaurant English,'' as her translator. When she told them what she
could pay, the two went into an intense and argumentative huddle. Sadly,
the director explained that the fee was all she could afford.
Another huddle, then the husband turned to her. ''O.K.,'' he said. ''But
when do we have to pay you?'' Ms. Tharp was stunned. ''I suddenly
realized that they came from a black-market system where if you couldn't
find a job you paid to work.''
For all the difficulties of adjustment many of the dancers face, the two
dance worlds are ultimately not so different, Victoria Lebedev, a
choreographer for the Staten Island Ballet, said. Konstantin Uralsky,
who is teaching at Hartford Ballet after directing the Ballet Iowa, now
defunct, for five years, agreed. ''I am who I am,'' he said. ''I do what
I did before and what I believe I have to do. I will work any place in
the world. But the United States is home now.''
The opportunities for work are decent but not unlimited here. Not every
director of an American ballet company is a Russophile. The Houston
Ballet recently took on its first Russian company member, though the
Bolshoi ballerina Nina Ananiashvili performs with the company as a guest
artist.
''I never found any good ones,'' Ben Stevenson, the artistic director of
the Houston company, said. ''There are. But obviously they stayed in New
York. They didn't swim as far as Houston.'' The dancers who did come his
way wanted to be hired as principal dancers, too, whatever their
background and whether or not they could dance anything but the
classics.
Admiring the Grace Of Their Arabesques
Still, he does admire Russian dancing for its balance and its emphasis
on the upper body. ''They don't just dance upright. They have a
wonderful line in the air, a curve to their arabesque. They also have
very soft plies. Their landings from jumps are secure.''
Mr. Fredmann lovingly recalls the Russians he saw dancing from the
1950's into the 70's in performances that ''didn't deal in small
statements.'' Even today, he said, the Russians dance with unusual
passion. ''They all seem to have a special kind of madness that is
charming at its best though at worst very trying,'' he said.
While he admires their classical technique, he said, many Russians have
little feel for the continuous lyrical flow of dancing. ''And Russian
men don't particularly like to partner. They don't want to stand behind
the women.''
One of the Russians' greatest gifts to the United States may be their
teaching of traditional classical ballet technique and style. The great
Kirov ballerina Alla Osipenko is a teacher and coach at Kirk Peterson's
Hartford Ballet. Ms. Kolpakova teaches at Ballet Theater and Ballet
Internationale. And Oleg Vinogradov, former director of the Kirov, heads
the largely Russian staff of the Universal Ballet Academy in Washington.
Vladilen Semyonov, who trained Mr. Aliev at the Kirov, now heads the
Indianapolis company's academy and offers free seminars to teachers and
dancers there and in nearby satellite schools.
Many American ballet directors feel the cachet of the Russian dancer is
beginning to wane as less experienced performers flood the market. But
the letters, telephone calls and videos continue to come, often prompted
by word of mouth.
Mr. Stevenson said he gets tips from an unusual source. ''I get letters
from people saying that they were on holiday in Omsk and met the most
wonderful dancers on a train. Or they met a choreographer on the plane.
We're subscribers, they say. We know you'll take them in.''
Correction:
November 11, 1997, Tuesday
A picture caption on Wednesday about Russian ballet dancers in the
United States misstated the affiliation of two dancers appearing with
the Staten Island Ballet. Gennadi Saveliev and Alexandra Koltun were
guest artists, not company members. Mr. Saveliev is a member of the
American Ballet Theater; Ms. Koltun performs as a guest with the Boston
Ballet.
The article also misstated the affiliation of Igor Zelensky. He dances
with the Kirov Ballet, not the Bolshoi.