VAGANOVA, AGRIPPINA (YAKOVLEVNA)

born July 6 [June 24, old style], 1879, St. Petersburg, Russia died Nov. 5, 1951, Leningrad ballerina and teacher who developed a technique and system of instruction based on the classic style of the Imperial Russian Ballet but which also incorporated aspects of the more vigorous, acrobatic Soviet ballet developed after the Revolution. Her pupils included such outstanding dancers as Marina Semenova, Natalia Dudinskaya, and Galina Ulanova. Vaganova was herself a student of outstanding teachers, and she also learned from observing Enrico Cecchetti and his student the prima ballerina Olga Preobrajenska. Upon graduation in 1897 from the Russian Imperial School of Ballet, St. Petersburg, she joined the Mariinsky Theatre, where she became known as queen of variations for her soaring leaps and brilliant footwork. Although she danced the ballerina roles of Odette-Odile (Swan Lake), the Tsar-Maiden (The Humpbacked Horse), and the Mazurka (Chopiniana), she was not given official ballerina ranking until 1915, two years before her retirement from the stage. Vaganova began her teaching career after the Revolution and in 1921 joined the Leningrad Khorteknikum (formerly the Imperial Ballet School), becoming its director in 1934. She also trained teachers at the Leningrad Ballet School (193441) and the Leningrad Conservatory (194651), where she was appointed professor. Her teaching system emphasized harmony and coordination of all parts of the body but particularly developed the back, enabling her students to make soaring leaps and manoeuvre while in the air. She staged many ballets for the Mariinsky company (called the Kirov State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet during the Soviet period), notably Swan Lake (1933), with Galina Ulanova as Odette-Odile. In 1936 she was made Peoples' Artist of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Her writings include a collection of memoirs and letters, Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova (1958), and the widely used textbook, Fundamentals of the Classic Dance (1934), which has been translated into many languages, including an English version by Anatole Chujoy (1946).