Adventures of My Life. Part One: The Beginning. Chapter 4
I passionately wanted to dance, to become a dancer. Spending a lot of time at my mother’s lessons and accompanying her on trips to festivals and seminars across the country, I was captivated by this emotional world. I often went with her to the theater to watch ballet performances, which fascinated me. School, by comparison, bored me: in contrast to my parents’ immersion in the world of theater, school felt uninspiring.
On weekends, I often went ice skating with my father at the Sokolniki Park rink. I remember one day, on our way to the rink, I kept pestering him with my requests to let me study at a theater school. My father wasn’t very supportive of my ambitions, explaining that one typically entered a college to study theater art after finishing school—and even then, only if they showed talent. He didn’t want to hear anything about theater clubs, and I was aiming higher—I wanted professional training. I don’t know what ultimately influenced my parents (whether it was this conversation, another one, or perhaps the advocacy of my grandmother), but not long after, I was taken to a dance group at the Pioneer Palace on the Lenin Hills (now known as the Sparrow Hills). I auditioned successfully and was accepted.
The hall where the lessons took place was full of children. I remember we often walked in circles, practicing movements that were already familiar to me from my mother’s lessons. Everything came easily to me. I couldn’t understand why the other kids found it so confusing and difficult. But I didn’t attend for long.
A couple of weeks later, some people came to observe one of the lessons. After class, they asked me to stay behind, evaluated my physical abilities once again, and requested that I come next time with my parents. A couple of days later, I came with my mother. When she entered the room, everyone burst into laughter, recognizing her:
“Lera, we wanted to tell you the boy is talented, but we didn’t know he was your son. We figured you already knew!”
It turned out the visitors were teachers from the Moscow State Choreographic School (Bolshoi Ballet School), scouting for gifted children. Saying this in front of me was a mistake. Now my mother couldn’t deny it anymore—I had talent!
I began my ballet training in the evening preparatory program of the Moscow State Academic Choreographic School (now the Moscow State Academy of Choreography). The evening program was headed at the time by Elena Nikolaevna Sergievskaya—the very teacher who had witnessed my first performance and staging work in the large room of our apartment. Thus began my journey from the large room to the Bolshoi Theater.
I attended evening classes at the school three times a week, if I remember correctly. The teachers were trainees from the school’s pedagogical courses. I loved going to these lessons.
To me, the school held the magical mystery of the theater—my future. The dance studios, the stern voices of the teachers, the piano accompaniment during lessons—all of it fascinated me. Every dance studio had a grand piano, and as you walked down the corridor, the space was filled with the sounds of music, the loud voices of teachers correcting students, and the serious, slightly smiling faces of kids emerging from their lessons. It was all so important, so enigmatic, even the air felt different. I was deeply upset whenever I had to miss a class.
That same year, I also took music lessons at a music school, as my father insisted. For some reason, my passion for dance didn’t earn his full support. I began playing the piano at the age of six. I still vividly remember being called in from playing outside with my friends to meet my first music teacher. That’s how my music studies began.
I don’t think I had much talent for playing the piano. I love music and often notice details in it that others overlook. Throughout my life, I’ve impressed conductors and composers with my precise understanding of musical material. But playing the piano was always challenging for me: my teachers changed, as did the schools, but the result was the same. I saw movement in the music, and perhaps that got in the way.
Playing myself didn’t bring as much joy or interest as listening to music. I regret this deeply, as I often wish I could sit down at the piano and play a musical fragment needed for my work, or simply reflect at the keyboard. But alas, I never mastered it. Thanks to the efforts of my final music teacher at the school, I earned an “excellent” grade on my graduation exam. At the ballet school, piano was a mandatory subject from the first year of study. My teacher was likely a brilliant professional. To be honest, I don’t even remember exactly what I performed at the exam.
Studying at the music school was difficult for me. I didn’t prepare well for the lessons, skipped solfège classes, and almost never attended choir practice, much to the displeasure of the teachers. But I was deeply engrossed in my ballet lessons at the choreographic school, and that became my priority.
At my regular school, where I continued my general education, I did well academically, but my focus and aspirations were already elsewhere. I was determined to be fully enrolled in the Moscow Academic Choreographic School and continue my studies there.
Before I was to take the entrance exams, my mother—who had many acquaintances at the school—arranged a private evaluation for me. In the school’s methodological office, where the evaluation took place, a small committee gathered and began examining me as though I were a horse up for sale.
My physical abilities were assessed by Pyotr Antonovich Pestov, a brilliant teacher and a former classmate of my mother’s at the institute.
“Look, nice long legs,” he remarked.
“Yes, but his arms are a bit short,” my mother immediately replied.
After some additional evaluation, Pestov commented, “Good turnout.”
“I think his head’s a bit large,” my mother quipped again.It seemed she was hoping they’d say I wasn’t suited for ballet, though she knew my abilities perfectly well.“We’ve seen all kinds of mothers, but one like this—never before,” concluded Yekaterina Bronislavovna Malakhovskaya, the head of the methodological office.
I was accepted to the school that spring and entered a new world in September. It was another beginning for me.
My first classical ballet teacher was the strict but kind Anatoly Gavrilovich Yelagin. There would be many teachers in my life, each leaving a significant mark. I am who I am today because of them. I owe so much to many of them, though there are some whose mistakes I will never forgive.
To be continued.
© Konstantin Uralsky