#morgulets

I continue to be perplexed by Morgulets's dismissal from VBA. Her performance videos are quite good and her port de bras is lovely. She's certainly at *least* as good as 1/2 the girls her age still at VBA. Plus, she has real charisma and will make a wonderful soubrette or ingénue ballerina. I hope she can Bulanova it. By contrast (I don't mean to be ugly) I can see why Cherepanova was dismissed. While she is great at stationary exercises/displaying nice lines, she seems unable to actually dance.

Only VBA exam committee could say why she was dismissed, and they obviously never share this information... I know it seems unfair. To us, all these girls are so hardworking and perfect that it’s hard to believe they could get expelled – but that’s VBA for you; they have ridiculously high standards. From what I’ve heard, Olya may have failed a classical dance exam (a surefire way to get dismissed), but whatever the reason, I’m glad to see that she’s still training elsewhere, and I hope she will have a professional ballet career.

-

I'm sure you've been asked this a million times now but, are state exams and graduation concerts all canceled due to the virus? And do you know if Russian theaters have put a moratorium on offering contracts to new dancers? I wonder if they might assure any of the top grads that they will have a place once things reopen. This must be an incredibly difficult time for the class of 2020 - not only the uncertainty, but also being deprived of their final weeks in the Academy, which many hold sacred

I don’t think anyone knows what’s going to happen yet. I’m not sure how accurate this is, but I think there will be no exams at VBA this year (with the exception of the graduating class), and everyone will just get transferred a year up. I hope this is true, because it’s the only fair way to deal with the current situation. I don’t know what’s going to happen to class of 2020. One theory (I can’t stress enough that this is a theory only) is that they will have have their exams in August – August is usually when students who fail the May exams get a second chance – or later in the year.  I don’t know what the situation with theatres is either. They are currently fighting for survival, and I don’t know if they’re in the position to offer new contracts,

-

I don’t understand what happened to Ksenia Sevenard. She was one of the best of her year, why no theatre took her ? I wonder if she decided to move on from ballet since graduating ?

I believe she was seriously injured in her final year. Which is a shame. I’m sure she would’ve been snapped up by a company straight after graduating. Unfortunately, this happens often. Someone once wrote to me that Ksenia is teaching classical ballet at the studio in St Petersburg these days.

-

Do you know if Sofya Khoreva is the “star” of her class at vba? Or do you know something at all about her class? When her sister was at school, there was a lot of material to follow her, but now I find less stuff on YouTube.

I think she’s doing well, but I don’t know what her “status” is. If she’s anything like her big sister, we’ll hear more about her soon enough.

-

Do you know what selections of the repertoire were being looked at/worked on for the Vaganova Graduation performances in June? Of recent past years performances, I've always enjoyed Paquita. And Suite en Blanc was divine.

Unfortunately, no. I’m sure the information is out there, but I never came across it. I’m pretty sure Suite en Blanc was a one-off thing though.

Thank you @austerlitzborodinoleipzig: From what I gathered from VBA students IG posts, the graduation performance was supposed to include The Dance of the Hours from La Gioconda, Laurencia and Classical Symphony. Interestingly enough no new ballets were envisioned this year.

I share your sentiment…

VBA 2019/2020 academic year is well and truly underway, and I have now heard from a number of sources that both Yana Cherepanova and Olga Morgulets are no longer at the academy. I know a few of you have been wondering about that.

This is a sad and sobering reminder of the harsh realities of the ballet world.

I know that a lot of people care about Olga very much because they got to follow her journey from the very beginning. They watched her struggle and succeed, and her success over the past three years seemed encouraging. The sad truth is that it means very little. With ballet, especially at a place like Vaganova, things can change rapidly and go from good to bad to worse very, very fast (it can go the other way too though).

I hope that whatever Olga does next, she finds joy and purpose. 

I don’t think I’ve been asked about Olya before. Unless I missed it (which is possible; there are a whole bunch of messages in my inbox I haven’t read yet).

All I have is rumours. And I don’t like spreading rumours. I’d prefer to wait until September (new academic year) before I make any comment. Whatever the situation actually is, I hope Olya is doing ok and we will see her continue hew training at VBA or another academy.