On November 17-18, as part of the International Cultural Forum, an academic conference entitled “Marius Petipa on the World’s Ballet Stage” was hold at the St Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music.

Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, this conference brought together theatre historians, ballet researchers and choreographers whose aim it is to reconstruct historical performances by Petipa.

Within the frames of the Conference presentation of a book “Marius Petipa. “Memoirs” and Documents’ (NAVONA, 2018) by ballet historian Sergei Konaev with participation of Pascal Melanie took place.

The St Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music also presented an encyclopedic album ‘Marius Petipa. La Dansomanie’ in two volumes and three languages – Russian, French and English. Leading ballet historians – Martine Kahane, Jane Pritchard, Olga Rosanova, Vadim Gaevsky have contributed their articles for this richly illustrated edition.

Participants and topics:

SISSI-BABA YOUSRA (Beirut, Lebanon)
The Petipa Phenomenon – or the ever-glowing radiance of stars

GAEVSKY VADIM (Moscow, Russia)
Petipa and Swan Lake

GAEVSKY VADIM AND INNA SKLYAREVSKAYA (Moscow, Russia)
Petipa and the work of Sergei Vikharev

SAITO KEIKO Sapporo (Japan)
Petipa’s ballets and how his works are currently studied in Japan – a case study: the Tchaikovsky Memorial Tokyo Ballet Company

BOGLACHEVA IRINA (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Carlotta Brianza, Italian dancer, in the ballets of Marius Petipa

GALKIN ANDREI (Moscow, Russia)
Choreographic notation in the Sergeev collection as a source for balletic reconstruction

VOSKRESENSKAYA NATALIA (Moscow, Russia)
The Harvard collection and its meaning for the reconstruction of choreographic texts and artistic style in Petipa’s ballets

GUCHMAZOVA LEYLA (Moscow, Russia)
Petipa’s ‘Orient’ as a socio-cultural phenomenon: why do we believe in Indian dancers’ arabesques?

PRITCHARD JANE (London, UK)
A closer look at The Sleeping Princess

KONAEV SERGEI (Moscow, Russia)
How costumes for The Sleeping Beauty evolved during the 19th and 20th centuries.

FEDOSOVA ELENA (St Petersburg, Russia)
The art of set design for ballets in the middle of 19th century: authors and the implementation
of their ideas.

ROSANOVA OLGA (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Swan Lake as interpreted by western European ballet masters from the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries

LALETIN SERGEI (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Raymonda and Serge Diaghilev: an unachieved production (1909) of Petipa’s ballet in the history of the Ballets Russes

MEYLAH MIKHAIL (Moscow (Russia)
The heritage of Petipa in Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and in Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo

ILLARIONOV BORIS (St. Petersburg, Russia)
The Petipa gene in the 20th century: somewhere between a symphonic dance and a balletic play – trends in 20th century ballet illuminated by Petipa’s own theatre tradition

HORMIGÓN LAURA (Madrid, Spain)
The imprint of Marius Petipa on Spanish writers of the 19th century

MEISNER NADINE ( London, UK)
Petipa’s ballets and their productions in pre-war Britain

WODZICKI MARIUSZ (San Francisco, USA)
Marius Petipa: views by his contemporaries from Paris

MIDDELBOE ANNE CHRISTENSEN (Copenhagen, Denmark)
The smile of Bournonville versus the longing of Petipa
A comparison between the Danish and the Russian ballet traditions of Bournonville and Petipa as they appear from a Copenhagen point of view

BOISSEAU ROSITA (Paris, France)
Marius Petipa and France

MARTINE KAHANE (Paris, France)
Petipa – Noureyev à la française, today and forever…

HIRANO EMIKO (Tokyo, Japan)
The reception of classical ballet in Japan and the dialogue between two traditions

Photos © Alexander Demyanchuk