Basic Principles of Classical Ballet Paperback – June 1, 1969

Although the stars of Russian ballet Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina possessed a national manner of dancing, there was once no in reality Russian school of dancing until the 1930s. The development of this school was once largely as a result of Mme. Vaganova (1879–1951), not only a great dancer but also the teacher of Galina Ulanova and many others and an unsurpassed theoretician.
The principles of Vaganova’s system are presented in this well-known book. Mme. Vaganova’s aim of creating a personal approach to the Russian dance was once based on the critical assimilation of the experience of her contemporaries. Her ability to select the most productive of what had been accomplished in the more than a few ballet traditions (French, Italian, and Russian) and combine these into a unified teaching practice in itself amounted to a new school of dance. She firmly believed that the teaching process will have to be a planned exercise, ever changing with innovations in the dance. She sought from her pupils emotional expressiveness, strictness of form, a resolute, energetic manner of performance, and the understanding of the underlying coordination of movements.
Her book discusses all basic principles of ballet, grouping movements by fundamental types. Chapters cover battements, rotary movements of the legs, the arms, poses of the classical dance, connecting and auxiliary movements, jumps, beats, point work, and turns in addition to material for a sample lesson. Diagrams show clearly the exact foot, leg, arm, and body positions for the correct execution of many steps and movements. The result is a fundamental theory of dance that offers dancers, teachers, and ballet lovers information incessantly difficult to locate in other books.
118 illustrations.