By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
MOSCOW - The ballet pipeline used to run mainly in one direction. Russians - Baryshnikov and Balanchine, Nureyev - went (or defected) to the West. But now a handful of young foreigners are venturing the other way to study at the Bolshoi Ballet school.
Both the culture shock and the rewards can be profound. The school, formally called the Moscow State Academy of Choreography, was established in 1773, and while it accepts foreign students, it is not about to change its ways.
This is a government institution with about 750 full-time students who range in age from 10 to 18. Among them are about 90 students from numerous countries, including Japan, Britain, Finland and Greece. East Asians are heavily represented. Russians study free; foreigners each paid $18,000 in tuition .
Julian MacKay, 12, from Montana and Joy Womack, 16, from Texas came to Moscow as part of a program sponsored by the Russian American Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Manhattan that promotes cultural ties between the countries. The foundation runs a summer session in the United States at which American children work with Bolshoi instructors. Last summer Julian and Joy were invited to enroll full time at the Moscow academy .
But there has been no hand holding for the Americans . They were thrown in with students who had years of immersion in exacting Russian dance schools.
“The standards are such and the work ethic is such in Russia that there is no room for failure, there is no room for laziness, there is no room to be nice when it is not appropriate to be nice,” Joy said.
A visit to one of Julian’s dance classes offered a glimpse of his day. His teacher, Olga Voynarovskaya, rattled off commands in Russian to 10 or so boys.
She lectured. She cajoled. She even slapped their limbs into place.
“Misha, stand up,” she said. “Ilya,are you sleeping? At times she joked, but she repeatedly pointed out Julian’s mistakes. She repositioned his legs, shaping and pounding his thigh.
Afterward she spoke warmly of him, saying that he had made significant progress. “He may not understand Russian very well, but he understands me,” she said.
Julian said he tried to intuit what his teachers are saying when he cannot grasp the words. Whether in Russia or the United States, dance terminology is generally in French, so both Joy and Julian already knew that.
“Julian sees the results in himself,’’ said his mother, Teresa Khan MacKay, who lives with him. “It is different than if a parent is saying, ‘This is too strict, this is too much.’ He says he loves it here, and then I say it’s O.K.’’
Joy has the maturity, not to mention the discipline, of someone far older. She moved to Russia on her own and lives in the student dormitory . On some days she does not leave the building.
She learned about Russian ballet on the Internet. She so idolized Natalia Osipova, the Bolshoi star who is appearing with American Ballet Theater this season, that she burst into tears the first time she saw her perform live.
At first her family thought that her longing for Moscow was a teenager’s fantasy, but her parents allowed her to go. While she has never regretted it, she has had bouts of loneliness .
Her teachers said Joy was being prepared for a major role in a Bolshoi production; she said her goal is to join the Bolshoi company itself.
“In America I never really felt that I fit in,” she said. “I want to be Russian. It calls to me. Russia calls to me.’’
