1 the

_. By Ralph Parker

MOSCOW

aes dancers slipped through the

door and ran to the corner
of the big practising-room. Their

teacher nodded to the pianist and,

the familiar notes of the pas de
deux from Scene 3 in Tchaikov-
sky’s The Nutcracker were heard.

“She is the most promising in
the seventh class,” Sulamith Mes-
serer whispered to me looking
with a smile of appreciation at
I6-year-old Nina Cherkasskaya,
clad in classical tutu. We have
two ‘more years to make a great
dancer out of her.” :

“We were visiting the Moscow
Ballet School, the 18th century.
foundation which with its sister
school in Leningrad trains danc-
ers for the exacting roles of per-
forming at the main opera and
ballet theatres of the Soviet
Union.

“The main differences between
our schoool and the way it was
before the revolution are our
much greater intake of pupils and
our curriculum,” said Mrs. Boch-
arnikova, the woman director of
the Ballet School. ‘Now we
teach our boys and girls not only:
how to dance but to take their
regular state matric.”

The Moscow Ballet School re-
ceives about 500 applications a
year — and accepts 30. Boys and
girls, in eaual numbers, enter
the school when they are 10
years old — three years after
starting regular primary school.
They then remain nine years at
a Ballet School.

The school is located in a. tall
building within a hundred paccs
of the Bolshoi: Theatre. The chil-
dren become acquainted with that
theatre very early: from the sec-
cud class onwards they are call-
ed on to appear in the roles of
Cupids, Amours, Street-Urchins,
Shrimps, Chicklets and the other
diminutive creatures that ballet
and opera call for. :

Moreover, the school has
“adopted” The Nutcracker as its
graduation ballet and throughout
their last year at school pupils
are likely to he performing resu-
larly in this delightful fairy-story
ballet. :

“The doctors have a good deal
to say in our selection of pupils,
the director toid us in answer to
our enquiries. as to how the 500
becomes 30. “Heart, proportions,
walk and gait are taken into con-
sideration. We also test the can-
didate’s powers of self-expres-
sion. The school, however, does
sometimes take pupils in on an-
cther basis.”

Gennadi Baukin, 20-year-old
‘miner from Voroshilovgrad, Don-
has, is a pupil who entered the
school unconventionally. He came
to Moscow in an amateur dance ,
group competing in the national
folk art competition. His aston-

The man

BUDAPEST

The whole Presidential Council
of the Hungarian People’s Repub-:
lic was kept waiting for an hour
and a half while a 100-year-old
peasant watered his sheep.

It happened like this:

Janos Zseller, member of a CO-.
operative farm in Zsambek, who
celebrated his 100th birthday on
Jtine 20, was invited to the par-
liament building in Budapest to
receive from the hand of Presi
dent Istvan Dobi himself the Or-

- Teaching ballet
soviet Union

GALINA ULANOVA ©

ishing leaps caught the attention
of some of the teachers in the
Ballet School and room was found
for him to study three years
there. So Gennadi gave up min
ing and we saw him doing exer-
cises at the barre with boys five
years his junior.

Training is divided into three
groups in the Ballet School —
classical dancing, folk dancing,
and dancing witha partner whicn
is really a sub-division of -classi-
eal dancing. The children usu-
ally do 90 minutes exercises ata
go, with only short breathers.
They go sur les pointes — on the
tips of the toes — from the sec-

der of Merit of Socialist Labor—

and the $225 award that goes with

it, :
But when all was ready, the

table laid, wines prepared and

the presidential council as-
sembled, a message came from
the: hero of the occasion that he
regretted he could not come
along at midday because that was
drinking time for his sheep and
he couldn’t trust the job to any-
one else!

There was nothing the council

ond year.

We found a class of seven boys
-——15-16 years old—practising un-
der the supervision of People’s

’ axtiste of the Republic Ruden<«

They wore whité ‘singlets and

b'ue shorts and were standing up ©

against the bar as we came in.
Assembles, Pas de Chat, Gargoud-
lades and other attractively
ramed steps were practised to the
steady beat of the piano.

In the next room a woman
teacher, a well-known ballerina
who retired a few years ago was

taking-a class of six girls, one of ©

them an Uzbek with arms that
fiowed from her body in, artless

could do but to postpone the oc-
easion for an hour and a half.

The aged Janos turned up this
time, fresh and jovial as a young
man. When he had got his decor-
ation and the wine was served
conversation turned, of course, to
ine secret of long life.

“The secret of long life?” he
said. ‘Why good health and
work! My father died at 116, one
of my sisters at 94 and the other
at 96.”

“And your mother?” someone |

and graceful curves. The girls
wore chitons — Greek . chiffon
tunics — with a thin bldck belt
at the waist.

At this time each year exams
are held in the Ballet School be-
fore & coinmission which leading
dancers from the Bolshoi serve.

Good or excellent marks in
both dancing and _ studies - auto-
matically bring the pupils a
monthly stipend. We’ were told
that altogether about four-fifths
of the boys and girls were recciv-
ing stipends. Free meals are
provided in the school dining-
room and the special medica!
services, including the reguiar at-
tendance of a masseuse, are en-
tirely free.

Although there are now 15 bal--

jet schools in the Soviet Union no
problem arises to find work for
young dancers. Not all who grad-
uate at the Moscow School, of
course, go to the Bolshoi Thea-
tre. This year, for instance, only
five of the 25 graduating will go
to the Bolshoi. Others will go to
dance in Kiev, Odessa, Tashkent,
Novosibirsk, Molotov; three or
four have been offered engage-
ments at the Nemirovich-Dancli-
enko Stanislavsky Theatre (Mos-
cow), others will probably join
the+State Folk Dance Ensemble.

The road to further study ana,
eventually, to teaching is also
open. Several young dancers who
are doing quite well at the Boi-
shoi Theatre attend extra-mura’
courses at the State Institute of
Theatrical Art which, after five
years, bring a degree.

A ballet dancer starting work
at the Bolshoi after completing
the Ballet School will be expeci-
ed to rehearse daily except Mon-
days and to appear in'opera and
ballet. Wages rise automatically
each year and, of course, are in-
creased if the dancer becomes a’
leading member of the company,
in which case the numbers of ap-
pearances becomes less.

After 20 vears the dancer re-
ceives a pension equivalent to
about one-half earnings on reach-
ing the retiring age. The receipt
of a pension does not obligate the
dancer to retire.

Now only the summer months
separated young dancers from
their first professional appear-
ances on the baHet stage. _

. Someone said a propos of the

‘naturalness and modesty of the

pupils of this school: “In many
lands dancers seem to believe
that all life is ballet; here they
obviously believe that all ballet
is life.” -

Unique as this school is in
Soviet life its products are, with
el] their dedication to their ex-
acting art, rank-and-file Soviet
citizens — and that means the
combination of an immense pride
and seriousness in their profes-
sional skill with an abiding sense

of being the servants of the peo-

ple.

a president waiting

asked.

President Dobi and some of
the ministers tried to persuade
Janos that he ought to have an
assistant nowadays, but he said:
“What would I do then? I should-
nt have enough to do, and then
there would be trouble!”

He . still worried about his

sheep and wanted to be off. “They

‘know the time better than human

beings and if I’m a little bit late
they start complaining. It is’
timé T went back to them.”

- wore a hearing aid.

“Oh, she died quite soon
- in life — she was only 95.”

y — aren't an authority on how

many people would dash up
to your door if you built a better
mousetrap; but we feel -certain
that the Englishman who devises
a simple neon sign which would
dash on when a Canadian asks
directions will make his fortune.

It shouldn't be too elaborate
an affair. .Just a simple neon
item which can be worn directly
between the eyebrows; it should
read, Put Canada First, or, Can-
adian — Do Not Delude.

Similar signs should be pro-
duced for American progressives
and should read, Down With
Dulles, or, Anii-McCarthy Ameri-
can. Otherwise the situation will
reduce the innocent bystander to
a quivering, hoilow-eyed hulk of
humanity.

For the English working class
has a good, healthy hatred ot
McCarthyism, Dullesism and Eis-
enhowerism. This, in turn, trans-.
lates itself into anti-Americanism.
And since the English don’t easily
recognize a Canadian accent as
against that of Brooklyn, ‘Bronx,
Manhattan and points east and
west, the colonial soon begins
screaming for nrercy.

You stop an Englishman on
the street and ask: “Pardon me,
could you direct me to Bang
Clappers Avenue?”

‘Tt isn’t until later that you
realize that a crafty gleam leap-
ed into his eye on hearing your
accent and that the directions he
gave you~sounded as cheerful as

‘a bulletin from Sing Sing. Also,

the directions seemed explicit
enough and it’s only much later,
efter checking your way with sev-
eral other Englishmen, that you’
wonder how- you arrived in Sur-
rey. ‘

* x *

.

We heard of one Canadian who
asked which bus he should take.
to get to Piccadilly Circus; if was
just- around tne corner but some
hours later, after a beautiful view
of thatched roofs, verdant green
lawns and a soft, rolling land-
seape, he discovered he was
reaching his destination by way
of Bexhill-On-Sea. He claims that
during his first week*in London
he covered more outside territory
than Robin Hood.

Our most recent anti-Dulles ex-

perience took place during a
short train ride. We shared a
coach with a nice old lady who
It was one
of those bright English days: half.

fog, half mist. :

“Shocking weather, isn’t it, |
luv?” said the old lady.

‘Dull, very dull,” we agreed.

“What’s that you said, duck?”

“Dull!” we screamed. “Dull!”

“Isn’t he tae cad, luv?” she
told us. “What a rotter! Fair
gives my stomach a turn to hear ©
him mentioned! Swear if you
like, duck, but kep. his name out
of the conversation.”

However, she was a friendly
old girl. She didn’t send us in
the wrong direction. —

@ Mel Colby, well-known Cana-
dian humorist, is now living in
‘England.

\ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 23, 1954 — PAGE 9