The Russian School was founded in St. Petersburg in
1738 by the French dancerJean-Baptiste Landé. The French influence continued
under such great teachers as Charles Le Picq, Charles Didelot, Christian
Johanssen, Jules Perrot, Arthur Saint-Léon and Marius Petipa. In 1885 Virginia
Zucchi, a famous Italian ballerina, appeared in St. Petersburg and created a
sensation with her forceful and brilliant Italian technique which differed from
the soft, graceful elegance of the French technique prevalent in Russia until
then. Other Italian dancers such as Enrico Cecchetti arrived in Russia and
continued to astound the Russians with their amazing dexterity, brilliant
pirouettes, tours and fouettés. The Russian dancers rapidly absorbed everything
the Italians had to teach and incorporated it into the Russian system. Thus, the
Russian School of Ballet is a development of the French and Italian Schools.
During the 1920s the Russian ballerina and teacher Agrippina Vaganova developed
a planned instructional system which later became known to the whole world as
the Vaganova system. This svstem has become the basic method of the entire
Soviet choreographic school.
