From classic to modern. Ballet photos from the ROSPHOTO collection

An exposition of 100 photographs from the ROSPHOTO State Museum and Exhibition Center collection, covering the period from the second half of the XIX to the end of the XX century, will tell the viewer about the relationship of photography and ballet in Russia.

The tradition of Russian ballet photography began in St. Petersburg in the 1850s, when the Italian actor Karl Bergamasko, who arrived in the capital, opened a photographic institution, which main visitors were actors of Petersburg Imperial theaters. On business cards, made in the studio of K. Bergamasko in the 1870s - 1880s, are portraits of the ballerinas: Ekaterina Ottovna Vazem, Maria Mariusovna Petipa, Lyubov Petrovna Radina, whose skill determined the formation of classical Russian ballet and the beginning of its heyday. It was the works of K. Bergamasko, who captured the most characteristic dance movements and poses in their elegance and harmony, marked the beginning of the classical tradition in studio ballet photography.

The successors of the classical tradition in the 1940s - 1960s were M. Gershman and M. Paley, who worked in the photo room of the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater and created magnificent characteristic photographs of the soloists of the romantic Russian ballet. The photographers, limited by the studio conditions, in their work aimed at the almost impossible - to convey not only the movements, but also the feelings and emotions of the actors on the stage in the photographs. The brilliantly executed studio studies are represented by the soloists of the Kirov ballet N. A. Petrova, A. A. Makarov, T. M. Vecheslova, N. M. Dudinskaya, K. M. Sergeeva, N. V. Timofeeva.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, classical ballet served as the basis for the development of modern dance - Art Nouveau ballet. The radically changed look of the dancers and the appearance of new elements introduced by choreographers captures photographers. The exhibition presents rare photos of dancers Isadora Duncan and Maria Ponn, dancer Alexander Kaverznev, ballerina Maria Semenova. Pictures taken by different authors are united by the desire to convey the movements of dancers in the most expressive way possible.