Do you know much about the VBA teacher Irina Trifonova? I've googled but can't really find anything.
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Irina Trifonova is hardcore.
She graduated from VBA in 1949 (class of Maria Romanova-Ulanova*). Her talent for teaching became evident while Trifonova was still a student. After graduating, she became Romanova-Ulanova’s assistant. She was also trained by Agrippina Vaganova herself to be a professional ballet teacher (graduating from Vaganova’s course at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in 1952).
Aside from teaching classical ballet (Osmolkina, Kondaurova and Smirnova were her students at one point or another), Trifonova has trained ballet teachers all over the country. A lion’s share of VBA’s current teachers were trained by her, including the great Lyudmila Kovaleva. She’s basically one of the people responsible for keeping the Vaganova method alive and thriving. There are also strong claims that it was her, and not Kovaleva, who had taught Diana Veshneva for her first three or four years at the Academy.
*Galina Ulanova’s mother.
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