St Augustine said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
In light of that statement, how fortunate and grateful we, the International Ballet Academy dancers, are at having been given the opportunity to participate in the Dance Open 2013 Festival in St Petersburg, Russia.
It was a unique trip that was a deeply moving experience from the moment we departed the airport, to the moment we arrived back home.
For those of you who do not know, the festival is Russia’s largest ballet forum. It is a festival of three parts – master classes taught by prestigious Russian teachers from the Vaganova Ballet Academy and Mariinsky Theatre, the Stars Gala that includes performances from some of the most talented professional dancers in the world today, and the awards ceremony in which several awards are presented by the jury (whose honorary chairperson is Natalia Makarova) to the performers in the Stars Gala.
Our trip included participation in the festival, and also a brief immersion in the rich culture that may be found in St Petersburg.
Our days were packed, with hardly a moment’s rest, but with a city as large, and with as many beautiful places to see and experience as St Petersburg, we needed another week there to begin to scratch the surface.
On our first full day in the city, we attended a master class in the morning, and then visited the gorgeous Hermitage Museum. It is one of the oldest, largest museums in the world.
The Hermitage, as with many of St Petersburg’s greatest monuments, seems to exemplify the “flavour” of the city – a distinctly Russian style that was created from an amalgam of other European cultures. The founder was German (Catherine the Great, born in Prussia), the architect was Italian, and the art is almost entirely European.
Unlike museums in North America, the building of the Hermitage itself was a work of art. There were the works of art hanging on the walls, and then there were the gilded walls themselves, and after that there were the breathtaking painted ceilings, which gave the illusion of looking into the heavens themselves.
According to our tour guide, it is said that it would take eight years to see everything that there is to see in the Hermitage.
We later got to see the ballet “La Bayadere” at the legendary Mariinsky Theatre. Despite our exhaustion, jet lag and a long, hard day, we all came alive for the iconic Act III whose music and corps de ballet work is considered by many to be among the most beautiful of any ballet. It was a real “ballet nerd” moment for us all to share, as we witnessed such a renowned company performing live.
The countries of the participants of the master classes included Brazil, Finland, Japan, Panama, Poland, Russia, and the USA and many of them also participated in a Gala of Young Ballet Stars as part of Dance Open 2013.
The International Ballet Academy prepared three pieces to bring to Russia to perform at the Gala of Young Ballet Stars at the State Theatre “Na Liteynom,” in the heart of St Petersburg.
Dancers Clarissa Lambert and Maxine McDade performed variations from the ballets Paquita and Don Quixote (respectively), and all of us performed in a modern dance piece choreographed by IBA faculty Lizzy Melton.
Our group number was chosen to open the Gala of Young Ballet Stars, a lively modern dance piece to start the evening off right, and later in the show Clarissa and Maxine (perhaps inspired by their Russian surroundings) gave their best performances of their variations yet.
Among other activities, we went on a city tour by bus. Those interested in Russian history and in particular Russian literature, were on the edge of their seats, gasping and exclaiming shamelessly as the tour guide pointed out the many landmarks of the city, as well as the 730 steps Raskolnikov walked in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime And Punishment,” and the small statue affixed on a building of the nose from Gogol’s short story of the same name.
Quite possibly the best part of the trip were the two Stars Gala performances on our last two nights in St Petersburg. The dancers in our group recognized almost all the names of the performers included in the program, and had dreamed of seeing many of them perform live.
As a group, we collectively gasped and moaned at the incredible technique and artistry displayed on those nights. Witnessing Uliana Lopatkina’s Dying Swan in the first Stars Gala brought me to tears and before I could laugh it off and pretend that I had not been so affected, I saw some of the dancers sitting next to me sniffing and quickly blinking away little bits of dust that had apparently become lodged in all our eyes simultaneously.
It was a strange, but exhilarating, and incredibly inspiring experience for us to perform a piece in such a different theatre from our “home field” of the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, and to take classes from such a variety of teachers with students from all over the world.
Different languages were being spoken from every side, but somehow that didn’t seem to get in the way. There were a handful of standard English and Russian words everyone, regardless of ethnicity, seemed to use to communicate – such as hello, please, thank you, spasiba, and “excuse me you’re crushing my tutu, move.”
Apart from that, it was odd to find ourselves all speaking the exact same language, on a deeper level. Vaganova Ballet Academy professor Gennady Seylutsky, at the beginning of his master class, aptly said: “I don’t speak English,” chuckling at his own speech, “But we all speak ballet.”
Though we were all far from our native countries, I felt, oddly enough, that I had traveled closer to home than I had ever been. Despite the foreign surroundings, everything felt so familiar. We were surrounded by the language and the culture of dance in the city that holds the heart of ballet.
Sarena Fishman, International Ballet Academy student
