Agrippina Vaganova
Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova (
July 6,
1879 -
November 5,
1951) was an outstanding
Russian
ballet teacher who developed the
Vaganova method. Her
Fundamentals of the Classic Dance (1934) remains a standard textbook for
ballet technique.
Vaganova's whole life was connected with the
Mariinsky Theatre in
St Petersburg, where she became known as
queen of variations for her acrobatic leaps and astonishing
footwork. In
1917 she retired from the stage and started teaching at the
khortekhnikum, as the
Imperial Ballet School was then known. In
1934 she was appointed director of that venerable institution, which now bears Vaganova's name.
Among Vaganova's pupils were the distinguished Soviet ballerinas
Natalya Dudinskaya,
Marina Semenova,
Galina Ulanova,
Olga Lepeshinskaya, and
Maya Plisetskaya. Her teaching sought to combine the elegant, refined style of the imperial ballet which Vaganova had been taught by the likes of
Enrico Cecchetti and
Olga Preobrajenska, with more vigorous dancing developed in the
Soviet Union. In
1933, she staged and choreographed the celebrated version of
Swan Lake with Ulanova as Odette-Odile.
Famous graduates of the Vaganova Institute reads like a "who's who" of ballet:
Rudolf Nureyev,
Irina Kolpakova,
Mikhail Baryshnikov,
Natalia Makarova,
Yuri Soloviev,
Altynai Asylmuratova,
Diana Vishneva,
Svetlana Zakharova.
*
Official site of the Vaganova Ballet Academy, whose post-Vaganova graduates include
Rudolf Nureyev and
Mikhail Baryshnikov*
Agrippina Vaganova's biographic sketch at
Find A Grave*
The Ballerina Gallery - Agrippina Vaganova 
