JessandSamdance

I thought it would be cool if we compiled a list of famous teachers at the Vaganova Academy, and their most prominent pupils. These are the ones I know off the top of my head:

Agrippina Vaganova: Natalia Dudinskaya, Irina Kolpakova, Galina Ulanova, Marina Semyonova, Olga Moiseyva, Alla Shelest, Alla Osipenko

Natalia Dudinskaya: Uliana Lopatkina, Anastasia Volchokova, Veronika Ivanova, Irina Zhelonkina

Inna Zubkovskaya: Altynai Asylmuratova, Veronika Part, Elvira Tarassova

Ninel Kurgapkina: Zhanna Ayupova

Ludmila Kovaleva: Diana Vishneva

Marina Vasileva: Yulia Makhalina, Olesia Novikova, Evgenia Obratsova, Victoria Tereshkina

Elena Evteyeva: Svetlana Zakharova, Daria Pavlenko (I believe they graduated the same year!)

Alexander Pushkin: Rudolf Nureyev, Yuri Soloviev

Anyone know of any more?

Irina Deplar was one of Vaganova's primary pupils before Vaganova died. In fact, Mrss Irina is one of my instructors, as well as her husband Vadim Fedotov and their daughter Katerina Fedotova. It's pretty awesome to know them personally, they've taught me so much!

Actually, I feel that even with the principal dancers on the stage everyone is working as a team. The background dancers create the mood, the spirit, and the feelings needed for the audiance to understand the emotions being portrayed. The principal dancers are part of the team in the sense that they are, as we would say in hockey, the "frontline". They are up front and sort of "carrying" the show, but they don't make up the team. Even the people backstage that help set up and help make the sets are part of the team because they help everything come together. Honestly, if you believe that ballet isn't a team sport you haven't opened your eyes very wide. More than one dancer is needed, therefore we all work together and coincide to make one brilliant performance.