an american in poland.

mother was depressed, father fell in love with another woman

older brother, Stanislav, fell from a window and suffered brain damage; was later labelled as insane and admitted in an asylum

wasn’t expelled from the Imperial Ballet School because his dancing ability made up for his academics and also explained why he was away from the classroom

did well in subjects that interested him anyhow (*cough* dance *cough*)

had jealous classmates who sabotaged him which gave him a concussion and a coma which lasted for 4 days

h o l y s h i t

his boisterous behavior was what expelled him from school

was later readmitted into his position after, to quote, “a sound beating”

was 14 when he was given his first principal role by Petipa himself in “La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon” which was never performed

was caught in the Bloody Sunday Massacre and got a head wound

became more reserved as he grew older to the point where other people found him dull and didn’t want to work with him

was offered a position in the Imperial Russian Ballet when he was still an undergrad but still chose to finish his studies

graduated second in his class anyway, with top marks in dancing, art and music

immediately admitted into the company as a coryphee, not even in the corps de ballet

he literally flew in his career good lord they’d never stop making the man jump

met Sergei Diaghilev, a Russian art critic an patron who later on became his manager and lover , and joined his company, Ballet Russes

Diaghilev’s sponsor died which led to the decline of finances in his company

started to choreograph his own pieces which caused an uproar in the classical ballet world

HE FUCKIN CHOREOGRAPHED MASTURBATION FFS

one of his pieces was abt a homosexual encounter between 3 men

nijinsky is the guy responsible for the “Rite of Spring”

yknow this piece

say what you want abt the guy but apparently he wasn’t a very good teacher, expecting everyone can dance the way he can

used his sister as a guinea pig for his new choreography

Mikhail Fokine, as in the guy who choreographed “The Dying Swan”, called him ‘incompetent’ and was only in the company bc he was Diaghilev’s lover #yikes

basically, he started being sort of a diva

was forced to tour in South America alone without his support system (sister, manager, and the fact that his father had recently died)

met a lady named Romola de Pulszky while at South America and was under the impression that she was a prima ballerina but later ignored her when he realized that she wasn’t

this lady became so obsessed with him that she broke off her engagement with someone, started paying Diaghilev and sponsoring his company, taking ballet classes with Enrico Cechetti just to be close to Nijinsky, and booking train compartments and hotel rooms near him #doubleyikes

she was creepy man she was befriending anyone who knew him

idk how man but Nijinsky proposed to her ???

important and powerful political people where responsible for his marriage tbh like for the money, for the power, for the glory

Nijinsky tried to teach Romola ballet so that she could perform with him in his upcoming performances but she wasn’t interested which broke his heart

they didn’t share the same hotel rooms the whole season

Diaghilev was so upset, he fired Nijinsky from his company

great so now he’s unemployed

still, he tried getting his shit together and formed his own company with only 3 experienced dancers

3 EXPERIENCED DANCERS

Romola helped by negotiating and managing so at least that was helpful

became more nervous and distraught when opening night came and Diaghilev came to watch

had a breakdown on the third night and couldn’t perform

the show was cancelled and lost a lot of money

the breakdown affected his dancing

he was classified as an enemy of Russia during World War I and was under house arrest 

Diaghilev spent 2 years trying to get him back to Russia under the condition that he would work for the Ballet Russes again

SO MANY POWERFUL PEOPLE INTERCEDED FOR HIM THE FREAKING POPE OF THE TIME DID

he would have rages now and then during rehearsals #tripleyikes

he was 28 in his last public performance

he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and his greatest fear was realized: he was admitted into an asylum

was in and out of the hospital and had long periods of silence

Romola stayed with him throughout all of this and even protected him during the war

Sometimes it’s difficult for people to seek contact with each other because they can feel intimidated by others. Using this meme, you can send the symbols to my askbox that represent to you how intimidating I am to you. This way, it could be more clear to both sides how things are based on these feelings.

Started rehearsing Giselle!

There’s several ways to go about determining your needs depending on your physical activities, so I will provide a few* 

CARBS (4 cal/g): General recommendation 45-65% of your daily calories

Average Gym Goer (3-4 days/week, 1hr, light to moderate intensity) 3-6 g per kg body weight

Workout Fanatic (5-6 days/week, 1-2hrs, moderate intensity) 6-8 g per kg body weight

Competitive Athlete (6-7 days/week, 2-4hrs, moderate to high intensity) 8-10 g per kg body weight

Ultra-Endurance Athlete (6-7 days/week, 4+hours, moderate to high intensity) 10-12 g per kg body weight

Power Lifter 6-10 g per kg body weight (55-65% daily calories)

FATS (9 cal/g):General recommendation 20-35% of your daily calories (7-10% saturated, 10% monounsaturated, 10% polyunsaturated)

Unless your on a diet that skews your macros, fat recommendations for sedentary individuals and active individuals stay within a 20-35% range. For both power and endurance athletes, the lower end of the daily fat % is recommended. 

PROTEIN (4cal/g): General recommendation 10-35% of your daily calories

Sedentary individual 0.8 g per kg body weight (12-15% daily cal)

Strength Athlete 1.4-2.0 g per kg body weight (15-20% daily cal)

Endurance Athlete 1.2-2.0 g per kg body weight (12-18% daily cal)

Team sport athlete 1.2-1.6 g per kg body weight (12-16% daily cal)

Weight gain/loss 1.6-2.0 g per kg body weight (16-20% daily cal)

Post workout protein/amino acid needs 

(just thought I would throw this in here for fun)

As little as 6g of essential amino acids (which can typically be found in approximately 15g high quality protein), as soon as possible or at least within 3hrs, post workout have been shown to help build muscle. 

General recommendations of 6-20g of essential amino acids (15-50g high quality protein) ,along with carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores, has shown to create muscle repair/building. 

Also, when studying and comparing two athletes following the same resistance training, athlete one that consumed 20g of essential amino acids post workout vs athlete two that consumed 40g had no difference in muscle repair/building. So consuming 100g of protein after your workout isn’t going to get you “ripped” any faster! All you’ll be doing is just consuming additional calories and protein that your body won’t need or use possibly leading to fat gains.

If you need to know how many calories you burn in a day to determine your needs click here.

The gang’s all here

Me, photo by Przemek Olejarz

Me, Warsaw summer 2014

Do you know what happened to Svetlana Savilieva? Per her instagram photos it looks like she had surgery of some sort (on her knee?).

She had extra bones (Os Trigonum) removed from her ankle. Apparently, it’s a pretty common problem with dancers. Although, she did mention that the condition hadn’t actually been confirmed. So it looks like the operation may have been a bit of a gamble… Sveta seems in good spirits though, and has documented the whole thing in insta stories. I hope she makes a quick recovery, but I don’t think we’ll see her in “Nutcracker” this year. Which is disappointing.

You said in a recent post that only 5-10% of students who start in grade 1 complete their studies and that Katerina Kuzmicheva was especially impressive as she has. Is that different than any other student (Say, one of the girls showcased in the Little Swans documentary or Khoreva or Ionova) finishing their schooling or am I missing something and Kuzmicheva is extra special?

Sorry, I should have worded it better / clearer. What I was trying to say is that any student who makes it through all eight years at Vaganova deserves respect and admiration, because it is an incredibly hard training program to survive.  

1st of all, thank you for the Vishneva interview translation! 2nd, regarding your comment about Katya Kuzmicheva, I find it interesting that, along w/ her, actually most of her class has made it from first to grad year: Sevenard, Bogdashkina, Uzanskaya, Frolova (who never left VBA), K. Spiridonova, Y. Spiridonova, Ustyuzhanina, Legacheva… this MUST be more than in previous years, no? Really of those graduating, only Khiteeva, Savelieva & foreign students joined after 1st yr. Seems remarkable!

You’re very welcome! Yes, you’re right, there are quite a few girls in Kuzmicheva’s year who made it through the entire Vaganova training program. I’m not sure how it compares to the class of 2018 though. The number varies from year to year, but it is generally pretty small. 

Re the new paid option for students starting in 1st grade, it was anounced that selected candidates who passed the first and second part of the audition but not the third, would be eligible to pay. So I envisioned a class of paid students. But it appears that only a couple of first year students were accepted as paid students, and they are integrated into regular classes. Do you know if this is correct? Will there be a switch if these students perform better than the others in the annual exam?

As I am not affiliated with Vaganova Academy, I can’t give you the exact information about the paid program. If I had to venture an educated guess, I would say that the number of paid places would be strictly limited, meaning that there wouldn’t be enough paid students to make up an entire class. Also, it wouldn’t make sense to train the paying students separately or otherwise treat them differently. Logically, there should be a relatively small number of paying students who are integrated into the rest of the cohort. 

What did Svetlana S said about her weight in her insta?

She detailed her experience of achieving rapid and extreme weight loss, what triggered it, how she did it, what effect it had on her body, and how she recovered. I have read similar accounts by Vaganova students and grads before, and they’re not pretty. I briefly considered translating some of them, as they highlight the dangers such choices pose, but then I realised that I will potentially be giving some vulnerable people step-by-step instructions on how to starve themselves. Tumblrs is already filled with pro-ana crap and I don’t want to contribute to it.

This summer I discovered that YouTube was a hot bed for ballet videos and thanks to the RT documentaries there I found myself watching many Vaganova graduation performances. Questions: Do graduates like Khoreva, etc—dancers with great primal potential—happen every year? And how many have corporate sponsors? Khoreva has Bloch & Nike—even young Olya Morgulets is a Merlet ambassador!

No, students of Khoreva’s potential are pretty rare. Obviously, Vaganova generally produces graduates of a very high caliber, but I’d say that ones like Masha come along once or twice in a generation. And that’s if we’re lucky. 

None of the students have corporate sponsors, but some do develop working relationships with major brands (that’s a bit different from having a sponsor). 

I had also been wondering about Alena Lebedeva. She still has the Instagram account alionas_kate but it isn’t clear if she is still a Vaganova student.

It looks like she may now be a student of the Rudolph Nureyev Ballet Academy in Ufa.

In the past ten years, who do you think the top 5 VBA grads have been?

Olga Smirnova (2011)

Renata Shakirova (2015)

Anastasia Lukina (2015)

Alena Kovaleva / Maria Ilyushkina (I couldn’t decide between them) (2016)

Maria Khoreva (2018)

That’s just my personal view.