Inside the Kirov Ballet

Robert Kaiser has a wonderful article in today's Washington Post , about his return visit to the Vaganova Academy of ballet after 33 years.

ST. PETERSBURG In February 1972, as the Moscow correspondent of this newspaper, I visited the Vaganova Ballet Academy, principal training ground for the renowned Kirov/Maryinski Ballet, in its historic home in Leningrad -- then the name of this exotic city on the Neva River. I was a young reporter trying to solve the mysteries of the U.S.S.R. Unexpectedly, that visit provided something close to revelation.

The Vaganova Academy, where Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov all learned to dance, first taught me how the Soviet Union accomplished its most important objectives. The secret was to limit the number of goals, and then to lavish resources on them. This was how the first Sputnik was launched, and then how the Soviets conducted their side of the nuclear arms race. It was also the method for training Olympic athletes. My visit to the Vaganova Academy was my first direct exposure to this method -- which was the way the school produced world-class ballet dancers. This was an important moment in my Soviet education.

In June, I revisited the academy to see how the passage of 33 years and the collapse of the Soviet Union had changed this famous school. I had no idea what to expect but eagerly anticipated new revelations. In a surprising way, I found them -- more about that in a moment.