Agrippina Vaganova

1. Agrippina Vaganova

2. Life • Born on June 26, 1879, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Agrippina YakovlevnaVaganova was the daughter of an usher at the Maryinsky Theatre and was exposed to ballet at a very early age. • She attended the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburgand, after her graduation in 1897, was taken  into the Maryinsky corps de ballet.   • Vaganova’stalent was soon recognized by the veteran choreographer Marius Petipa , and so brilliant were her solos in such ballets as Coppelia, Don Quixote and The Little Humpbacked Horse, that she became known to the critics as the “Queen of Variations.” • Vaganova   received the title of Ballerina   in 1915, a year before her farewell performance.

3. Teaching The Vaganova Method However, Vaganova’s most vital contribution to ballet was her teaching method. She created her method of ballet at the Kirov (Maryinsky) Theatre and at the Leningrad Choreographic School, now known as the Vaganova Ballet Academy.  She taught senior students in their final three years of study at the Leningrad  Choreographic Academy. From 1921-1951 when she died.

4. Teaching The Vaganova Method Through the thirty years she spent teaching ballet and pedagogy, Vaganova developed a precise technique and system of instruction.  Vaganova’s system synthesized what she had learned from her masters with her own concepts of the possibilities of movement and technique. The result was a brilliant, clean technique combined with an amplitude of movement and a suppleness of the upper body that are the hallmarks of a  Vaganova dancer.

5. From her teaching emerged a string of brilliant ballerinas. Natalia Dudinskaya Vaganova’smost beloved pupil, became the star of Leningrad ballet stage. AllaOsipenko Olga Jordan Irina Kolpakova Marina Semeonova Tatiana Vetcheslova Galina Ulanova