Image: Princess Nathalie Poutiatine and Sheila Mamo, c. 1953 (Photo courtesy of Sheila Anderson Wenner)
The discovery of manuscripts from the 1950s and 1960s suggest the various influences in Poutiatine’s approach to the art of teaching ballet: Lubov Egorova’s classes, including the principles from the Italian school (Cecchetti-based classes), the Imperial Ballet School (Pavel Gerdt, Christina Johansen, Michel Fokine), and Eduard Espinosa’s Syllabi and Technique of Operatic Dancing manuals.
During Academic Year 2017-18, Poutiatine’s 1953 class choreography (12 exercises at the Barre, Adage and Allegro) was restaged with the Advanced Foundation (pre-professional) students of the Philippa Hogan School of Dance, Surrey (UK). The reconstruction of the ballet class worked towards an embodied understanding of Poutiatine’s legacy in the Art of Teaching Ballet.
Reconstruction Exemplars
Through the reconstructed exemplars from Poutiatine’s teachings, these characteristics are most likely representative of the principles and practices that Poutiatine encountered in her training at Egorova’s school in Paris in the 1920s (including the Cecchetti/Gerdt/Johansen/Fokine teachings via the Imperial Ballet School alumni), as well as her interest in other teachers such as Edouard Espinosa, founder of the Association of Operatic Dancing (now the Royal Academy of Dance). Other annotated classes in the teaching journals from 1953 include ‘themed’ classes, progressing from adage-style combinations, to middle or large, expansive allegro combinations, reflecting the expectations of, and provisions for, an ‘advanced’ student at Poutiatine’s Russian Academy of Dancing in Malta during the 1950s.
Advanced Class, 1953 – Barre
Teaching Notebook, 1953 (barre exercises). Courtesy of Tanya Bayona
Advanced Class, 1953, Adages
Teaching Notebook, 1953 (Adage exercises). Courtesy of Tanya Bayona
For more information see Chapter 4 (Ballet Boom of the 1950s) in Princess Poutiatine and the Art of Ballet in Malta (2020).
Students at Otrada, c. 1952/53. Courtesy of Tanya Bayona MQR
Teaching notebook, 1960s. Courtesy Tanya Bayona MQR.
Princess Poutiatine and the Art of Ballet in Malta 