Ask Responses: Bolshoi
Kinda wish Oscar frame was an instagrammed so people who have followed his curious know he is okay :(. It sucks what happened, I hope he finds a different company and it just reminds me of what Nikolai said how career starts in the theater. Just because you were a star student won’t make you a star dancer.
Oscar’s situation makes me very sad. He was progressing so well at the Bolshoi before his injury and the subsequent scandal. After that, everything went quiet. Since the Bolshoi had kept him on, I was hoping that they were still invested in him if they had to be quiet about it. The scandal aside, a talented dancer with excellent career prospects falling off the face of the earth is an unfortunately common occurrence. Among Nikolai’s own students, or students he often rehearsed with, only a handful have “made it” so far. Gerashchenko is the most successful of the lot by a long shot.
I hope that Oscar will resurface at a different company and will go on to have a fulfilling career.
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I am ecstatic about Egor Gerashchenko's promotion! He certainly deserves it!! But you have been posting about Nicholai's return to Bolshoi as AD recently. I understand that these two hate each other now. Will it get ugly if the old teacher comes to Bolshoi?
It’s actually so refreshing to hear someone being happy for Egor. Since I tend to follow ballet / VBA news through a Tsiskaridze lens, the narrative around Egor is damning. It’s kind of odd to hear something nice for a change.
We don’t actually know what the relationship between the two of them is like or what caused them to fall out. The only person who makes frequent, public comments about the situation is not a reliable narrator. There are two sides to every story.
Gerashchenko is also not the only one of Nikolai’s students who has fallen out with their former teacher. There are several such people at the Bolshoi, and it’s anyone’s guess how things will unfold if and when Tsiskaridze comes back to the Bolshoi. For what it’s worth, he pretty much left Ovcharenko alone after they had broken up back in the day (aside from an occasional snide comment in the press).
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I get that Bolshoi has a lot of politics, but why? Do people just not like each other there? If that's the only reason, that's kind of sad. And who was it who died? That's absolutely ridiculous for a ballet company as respected to be acting like warring mafia groups and dancers dying as a result. Frankly, I'm kind of mad reading that there is so much politics, because it doesn't even seem to be about the art anymore. You said that both Semyonova and Ulanova took Tsiskaridze under his wing, and that he was thin-skinned. From the way you wrote it, I gathered that they were not really part of the poltics, but rather couldn't do anything to stop the internal war. Is this true? Was it like this back in the 30s and 40s and 50s when they both were dancing? Also. did they like each other and respect each other or treat each other more as competitors? Finally, how come Tsiskaridze was thin-skinned even after Pestov? Carrying on from Semyonvoa and Ulanova, did all of Vaganova's direct pupils generally get along? They would all have been dancing at around the same time. Did they compete with each other to be Vaganova's favorite student, or were they all friends with each other beause of their common teacher?
All companies are political to an extent. Some are just better at managing conflict internally than others. The Bolshoi is Russia’s main theatre, it’s location in the heart of Moscow is also significant, and it’s a massive and complex organism – a state within a state. Running that beast smoothly is next to impossible.
I’m sure that there are many cases of people dying as a direct result of their involvement with the company, but the two that immediately come to mind are Maris Liepa (it is said that his history with the Bolshoi severely affected his health; he died at the age of 52, seven years after quitting the company) and Alexander Bogatyrev, the Bolshoi’s artistic director in the 90s (unless I’m thinking of the wrong person, he’s the one who died of a stroke allegedly brought on by the stress of his role).
I think Ulanova and Semyonova were way above politics during the 90s, because they were such monumental figures in the ballet world.
The Soviet era (especially the Stalin years) were a completely different kettle of fish. This is such a big question that it will take writing an essay to answer it... Let’s just say that things were hella political and hella complicated.
According to Tsiskaridze, Semyonova and Ulanova did not interact with each other and he was the one thing they had in common and connected over during his early years at the Bolshoi. I’m guessing here, but I think this has to do with the fact that Ulanova publicly spoke out against Vaganova when the latter was being hounded in the 30s. Ulanova effectively betrayed her teacher and Semyonova, who remained loyal, never forgave her for this.
I think I didn’t explain myself well. Pestov had definitely toughened Nikolai up, but he was still a young and emotional loudmouth who was very naive and new to company life.
I can’t speak for all of Vaganova’s students. I know about the conflict between Ulanova and Semyonva (see above), but other relationships I’m familiar with were just... normal. Some people got close during their school years and remained close friends. Other didn’t.