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“Who is to dance at Mariinsky?”


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According to this link, she spent the summer instructing at Grand Rapids Ballet:

http://www.grballet.com/keenan-kampa/

Also, apparently she's appearing in a fictional movie:

http://www.pointemagazine.com/blogs/keenan-kampa/keenan-kampa-star-high-strung

Neither of these articles give any indication Kampa has left the Mariinsky. There are a few tweets from her about the car sharing service Uber, but it's hard to know if they are legit. After all the brouhaha about her being in the company and now she's mysteriously gone. Given the currently sour relationship between the U.S. And Russia, I'm not that surprised she's gone.

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My questions still stand: were those terms different than any other Vaganova Academy graduate? If different than in years past, did the change apply as of a specific year?

Academy graduates who have been hired into the corps have been cast in soloist roles, whether or not they are slated to rise up the ranks.

Zhiganshina is different to other Vaganova graduates in recent years in that she is the ONLY one who danced a principal part in a full-length ballet (Masha with the Nutcracker) with the Mariinsky ballet while still a Vaganova student. Not the only one in her year, but the only one in the past 19 years, because the last one I can remember is Diana Vishneva as Kitri (correct me if someone here knows someone else who did that later). None of the graduates since 2008 or earler has even danced a solo part with the company before graduation.

On the Mariinsky tour to London, this past summer, Renata Shakirova -a Vaganova student- danced the role of Polyhymnia in Balanchine's Apollo. I also believe I saw her in a video a few days ago, performing the pas from Nutcracker. I have never heard of her before but Fateyev must like her.

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I too have been puzzled with the choices made during the past two years. I'm still upset about Zhiganshina choosing Bolshoi over Mariinsky, she was such a joy to watch.

It really seems like the main Mariinsky selection criteria is currently having a tall, extremely thin body type, hyper-extended feet and crazy extension. Artistry, acting skills, musicality and expression don't seem to be held very important. It's such a pity. Ballet is not a sport.

Mariinsky stills have some gems though. Tereshkina is great, Vishneva, Lopatkina too. But Skorik as a PRINCIPAL dancer?

Shakirova is gorgeous in my opinion, and I'm happy to see this recent Vaganova graduate dancing principal role in Nutcracker and DQ.

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I do not believe that most Vaganova graduates "choose" Bolshoi over Mariinsky. Their dream is to dance at the Mariinsky. That is why they attended Vaganova and not Moscow's school. Unfortunately, some great dancers are not chosen for Mariinsky once they graduate and there is the odd case of someone like Olga Smirnova choosing Bolshoi because of what she was offered (a career trajectory), but overall I think 99% of Vaganova girls dream of dancing at Mariinsky. The current situation is very sad concerning Vaganova dancers' hopes, in my opinion. There are plenty with artistry and acting skills and musicality and we are missing out big time.

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Smirnova is hardly the first to elect to not go into the Mariinsky. In her year alone (2011), Shapran opted for the Stanislavsky. In the mid 2000s (2005 or thereabouts) one of the top female grads - Oksana Kiyanenko, who danced Firebird at the graduation shows - opted to go straight to the Vienna Opera Ballet...and, the following year, several of her co-graduates (including Maria Yakovleva, now a Vienna principal) jumped to Vienna from the Mariinsky corps.

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