Russian ballet class 1946!

[Sheila Beelam]

Found this on my Facebook feed - fascinating 3 minutes of a Russian ballet class in 1946.

 

Shame there are no subtitles, but I was just amazed at the 180 degree turnout!

 

https://www.facebook.com/BolshoiAcademy/posts/10203213958415298

 

I wonder what happened to those little dancers...?

[Fiz]

I used to have turnout like that. *weeps*

[Pas de Quatre]

Yes they are gorgeous.  But you have to remember they are the very select few, selected from all over the USSR (as it was in those days).

[Moomin]

It's interesting to see some of their feet, not the popular look of today!

[hfbrew]

I used to have turnout like that. *weeps*

I never did. Weeps even more...

[aileen]

There's great uniformity in height and build.

[Aurora]

The didn't articulate their feet much back then did they? Or is that a Russian thing generally?

[Anjuli_Bai]

Those practice skirts are interesting - very different from the film "Children of Theatre Street."  One time as they turn to the other side it a set turn - the next time it is not.

 

In the slow tendue there is some articulation but they lose it in the faster set.  The arches are not particularly high.

 

Even the haircuts look the same.

 

It is a credit to Russia that this class existed keeping in mind what Russia had suffered by 1946.

[drdance]

Interesting that the "180 degree turnout" isn't actually 180 degrees apart from at the feet. A lot of the time those girls' knees were not facing the sides, but more diagonally forward/sideways apart from in 2nd where it's easier to turn out the knees in plie, and in tendu the girl who had the close up did have very turned out tendus.

[Yaffa]

The Bolshoi Academy's video library has a link to the complete video (almost 2 hours).

Bolshoi Academy's video library (with some other interesting links): http://balletacademy.ru/biblio/video/

The YouTube video:

 

Yaffa

[Pas de Quatre]

Thanks Yaffa - look forward to seeing all of it.  So far have just got as far as fondus (about 25 mins in).  One thing I have noticed is how they are working on a low 1/4 pointe at times rather than the higher 1/2 or 3/4 pointe usually seen today.  Perhaps it is a training stage and they go up higher when older.