In April there is the anniversary of the theatre “Russian Ballet”

The interview with Ludmila Bragina – the director of the theater agency «soyuzsportteatr» and The director of the St Petersburg theatre «Russian ballet»

- Tell us, why this theatre was created? Who is its author?

- The theatre was created in 1990 by an ex-dancer of the Mariinskiy theatre, ex schoolmate of Barishnikov – Alexander Bruskin who belongs to the dynasty of professional dancers.
The idea was to perform a classic Russian ballet. We wanted to respect the traditions of the Mariinskiy theatre and we are glad that performances are easily recognized: “Swan lake”, “Sleeping beauty”, “Nut cracker” etc.

- Tell us about your role in theatre’s life?

- We always do castings for those who would like to join us. We also supervise our dancers and cooperate with impresarios all over the world. We recently went to Spain, Germany. Soon we are planning a tour to Chile and Arab Emirates.

- Now, after 20 years, did you objectives change? Maybe you have new targets?

- We keep our traditions of classical ballet school, but we also experiment. Together with the theatre of sport we did a new performance of «Nutcracker» with some acrobatic elements. The most important for us – is to never stop developing.

- You cooperate with the «soyuzsportteatr» agency? Have you any other projects you would like to tell us about?

- Now we are working with Ermitajniy theatre and the Theatre of the music comedy, Kid's theatre and with some dancers from the Mariinskiy and Mikhailovskiy theatre. We organize their tours, concerts. Finally, we organize the concerts of foreign dancers in Saint Petersburg.
Our second occupation is to develop the youth sport and the healthy way of life. We teach children the fencing, acrobatic rock-n-roll etc.

- Your nomination for the «Woman of the year» award was unexpected? Tell us about your charity actions?

- It's not the first time that I am nominated for this award. I think we should organize the charity projects more often. We devote ourselves to social programs – such as giving tickets to our performances to handicaped people, children. We wanr ballet to be more accessible for everyone.
Such stars as Anastasia Volochkova and Anastasia Kolegova have been dancing in the Hermitage theatre. We are proud to have helped them at the beginning of their career.

- Tell us more about the repertoire of your theatre as well as its next tours?

- So far, we made more than 3000 performances in Russia and all over the world: Japan, Germany, France, USA etc. We perform in one of the most beautiful theatres - «Hermitage».
There, we make more that 150 performances per year.

- Which are your favourites?

- I love classic ballet very much. It is all about scenery, costumes and the play of lights. When I see a high professional performance of the classic ballet, I am amazed and pleased to see how beautiful it is.