265 replies to this topic

[Helene]

ABT is the only company for whom "home grown"  does not, at least yet, include coming from the school, which is still too new to have an impact.  Part of the answer depends on whether the dancer needs to be part of ABT II or whether starting in the corps counts.

For the Royal Ballet, whether they studied in the school:

Principals:
Acosta-no
Benjamin-yes
Bonelli-no
Cojocaru--studied six months at the school from a Prix de Lausanne scholarship prize
Cuthbertson-spent nearly seven years at the school
Galeazzi-no
Kish-no
Kobborg-no
Lamb-no
Makhateli-no
Marquez-no
McRae-yes, one year at the school
Morera-yes
Nunez-no ETA: "yes" (see below)
Pennefather-yes
Polunin-yes
Rojo-no
Soares-yes ETA "no" (see below)
Watson-yes
Yanowsky-no

First Soloists:
Cervera-yes
Chapman-no
Choe-no
Crawford-yes
Gartside-yes
Hristov-no
Kobayashi-no
Martin-no
Mendizabal-no
Stepanek-no

The Bolshoi has foreign students in the school -- Julian and Nicholas MacKay are two of them -- but I don't know if there's a rule or policy about whether they can be accepted into the company, and they still are too young to be chosen, if this is possible.  I haven't read anything to show that the same is true at the Mariinsky.  I know Paris Opera Ballet has competitions for dancers not trained at their school, and I don't know the policies of either the Vaganova Institute or Paris Opera Ballet School about accepting students in addition to the kids they choose at eight for the sole purpose of making them into professional dancers, which is not the case for any of the company-affiliated schools in the US, which accept local students early and then select most of their professional division students much later.

According to the Paris Opera Ballet website, "Practically all the dancers are trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School."

All of the Etoiles attended the school.  Only two of the Premiers Danseurs, Alessio Carbone, who came from Milan, and Ludmila Pagliero, who came from Ballet de Santiago did not attend the school.  There are no bios for Sujets and below on the site.

http://www.operadepa...dex.php?lang=en

The majority of Etoiles and Premiers Danseurs studied at the school for 5-7 years, joining the school between 9-11 and either being asked to join the corps or auditioned successfully for the corps between the ages of 15-18.  Several of them studied at the school for one year before being accepted -- Clairmarie Osta, Jose Martinez, and Laetitia Pujol -- and a few for two years -- Mathieu Ganio, Isabella Ciaravola, and Nowwenn Daniel.

For the Mariinsky, three of the Principal Dancers did not study at the Vaganova Academy:  Igor Kolb (Byelorusian State Ballet School), Daniil Korsuntsev (Uzbek School of Ballet), and Denis Matvienko (Kiev State School of Dance).  Both Irma Niradze and Igor Zelensky studied at the Tbisili School of Ballet before studying at the Vaganova Academ.  No other Principal Dancers or any of the First Soloists have any other school listed in their bios.  Of the Second Soloists, Nadezhda Gonchar (Kiev State School of Dance), Maria Shirinkina (Perm State School of Dance), Andrei Ivanov (Byelorussian State School of Dance), and Timur Askerov (Baku School of Dance) were trained outside the Vaganova Academy.

http://www.mariinsky.../ballet/troupe/

At the Bolshoi, six of the 19 Principals studied outside the Moscow State Choreographic Academy:  Nikolai Tsiskaridze (Tbisili Ballet School),  Anna Antonicheva (Baku Ballet School), Ivan Vasiliev (Belorussian State Choreographic College), Mikhail Lobukhin (Vaganova Academy), Nadezhda Gracheva (Alma-Ata Ballet School), and Svetlana Zakharova, who studied at the Kiev Choreographic School before being "finished" at the Vaganova Academy.  Three of the nine Leading Soloists studied outside Moscow:  Yelena Andrienko (Kiev Ballet School), Andrei Merkuriev (Ulfa Ballet School), and Yekateriana Shipulina (Perm Choreographic College).  There are only a couple of bios of First Soloists and Soloists.

http://www.bolshoi.r...roupe/soloists/

The Mariinsky and Bolshoi have promoted dancers that were not trained in Moscow, but all of them were trained in schools that had been part of the former Soviet Union training system.

[Fraildove]

I know it is off topic, but it is interesting to note that the Bolshoi has announced open auditions for the company. This was a huge shock when I heard. Of course it isn't a given that they will accept anyone into the ranks outside of the Eastern European schools, or if they did what it would mean down the line for their 'style'. A dancer must be preselected to audition, but does anyone else remember a time that they have held outside auditions?

[MRR]

Nunez studied at RBS for a year.

[Helene]

MRR, on 24 July 2011 - 07:53 PM, said:

Nunez studied at RBS for a year.

Thank you for the correction; I didn't read far enough to see that she did the Graduate Course at the school.

[Alymer]

As far as I know Soares was never at the Royal Ballet School.  Nunez did a year there because at 15 she was too young to join the company under UK labour law.  She had been a soloist at the Colon for a year before coming to the UK.

[Helene]

Alymer, on 25 July 2011 - 02:23 AM, said:

As far as I know Soares was never at the Royal Ballet School.  

Fixed!

--

Pacific Northwest Ballet School typically trains dancers for their last two years before joining the company.  (There have been a few local dancers recently who joined the school at a young age:  Rollofson, Anspach, and Hippolito, Jr., for example.)  That's the expectation here, while at Royal Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, and Bolshoi Ballet, major companies that have schools whose reason is to train young kids for the company, a dancer who has only a year or two at their schools is not the norm.  

Is the definition of "home-grown" the same for a dancer in the Mariinsky Ballet as it is for ABT or NYCB?  I think one of the major criticisms of the Royal Ballet is that the school is not producing the top dancers, who are, for the most part, imported.

[Mashinka]

Helene, on 25 July 2011 - 09:33 AM, said:

I think one of the major criticisms of the Royal Ballet is that the school is not producing the top dancers, who are, for the most part, imported.

Another criticism is that the male dancers Monica Mason has imported could hardly be called 'top'.

The Royal Ballet is a ticking time bomb of mediocrity.

[Jayne]

Mashinka, on 26 July 2011 - 01:36 AM, said:

The Royal Ballet is a ticking time bomb of mediocrity.

haha! A certain NYT reviewer has written repeatedly that mediocrity is present and accounted for.  I do think the commodification of ballet (everyone looks the same) is part and parcel of the willingness to hire such a wide range of dancers from a wide range of schools.

[miliosr]

Looking at the revised men's roster on ABT's site, the hemorrhagging of talent wasn't too extensive (although losing Carreno, Lopez and Stappas doesn't help matters.)  For now, the corps guys are staying put . . . in hopes of what I'm not quite sure.

[miliosr]

Didn't know where to put this so I'm slotting it in here:

http://balletnews.co...ballet-theatre/

You can take his parting comment any way you like . . .

[miliosr]

Two notes from yesterday's (03/24/12) performance of Giselle in Chicago:

1)  The program only listed four male principals: Cornejo, Gomes, Hallberg and Stearns.  (Beloserkovsky, Corella and Steifel weren't even listed as a courtesy.)  Boy, Kevin MacKenzie better hope that none of his four workhorses (three if you discount Cornejo, who is oft-injured or away in Spain) goes down (knock on wood) or he is going to be in a world of hurt when it comes to the touring schedule.

2)  Watching the corps guys yesterday, my betting money would be on Eric Tamm being the next rise.  He has the princely bearing (onstage and off -- saw him twice [!] in the lobby [!!]) that would be perfect for the princely roles which so dominate ABT's repertory.

[VirginiaB]

I saw the first 4 performances of Giselle this week. I thought that Julie Kent (with Marcello) created the best version of Giselle. Her lightness and lovely arms were especially beautiful.  Of course, Marcello's performance was excellent.
But the outstanding performace of the four I saw was Herman Cornejo's. His dancing was superb, his brisees in act 2 were gorgeous and his acting was overwhelmingly thrilling. On the other hand, Reyes had a major problem with the hops in act 1.
I agree with the others who were in Chicago that the corps dancers were lovely.

[spinning2night]

miliosr, on 25 March 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Two notes from yesterday's (03/24/12) performance of Giselle in Chicago:

1)  The program only listed four male principals: Cornejo, Gomes, Hallberg and Stearns.  (Beloserkovsky, Corella and Steifel weren't even listed as a courtesy.)  Boy, Kevin MacKenzie better hope that none of his four workhorses (three if you discount Cornejo, who is oft-injured or away in Spain) goes down (knock on wood) or he is going to be in a world of hurt when it comes to the touring schedule.

2)  Watching the corps guys yesterday, my betting money would be on Eric Tamm being the next rise.  He has the princely bearing (onstage and off -- saw him twice [!] in the lobby [!!]) that would be perfect for the princely roles which so dominate ABT's repertory.

re: only listing 4 male principals...i think that might mainly be because Stiefel and Corella are pretty much understood to only be principals during the Met season...regarding Max tho, is his history with injury is extensive and he never seems to get over them completely, but as we know, Max and Irina are kind of a package deal...was Irina listed? (I saw them both in SL 2 years ago in Chicago, and I thought Max was great for that performance...but then he got injured again and really hasn't dance for the past year)

[miliosr]

spinning2night, on 25 March 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

...was Irina listed?

No.  The female principals listed were Herrera, Kent, Murphy, Osipova, Part and Reyes.

[mussel]

ABT only lists principals that dance in that particular engagement.    Mariinsky did the same thing at the Met, it only listed principals that danced during the Met seaon in the programs last year.