NEWS

“Kostroma” Ballet made its own print publication, a newspaper called “Ballet Mondays” (“Baletniye Po

The first issue of the first newspaper about choreography in Kostroma and Kostroma Oblast, a newspaper for those whose life is dance, called “Ballet Mondays” (“Baletniye Pondelniki”), has come out. The Russian National Ballet “Kostroma” is the creator and the founder of the newspaper that is supposed to come out four times a year with the circulation of 1,500 copies. The first issue was dedicated to the Company’s main topic of the year, the 25^th anniversary of the Russian National Ballet “Kostroma”. The first copies were distributed at the Ballet’s anniversary night on the 4^th of May and on the 26^th of May in the Concert Hall “Gubernsky” at the graduation performance made by the “Governorate Ballet School” (College).

The idea and the name of the newspaper – “Ballet Mondays” – were not chosen by accident, they were taken from the historical past of cultured Russia, the time when Russian ballet was becoming popular on the international stage. The ballet used to be not only the most delicate form of art but a fashion, too. In the 19^th century in the Big Hall of Saint Petersburg’s Philharmonic Society only on Mondays there were held extremely popular nights of dancing art called “Ballet Mondays”. Both stars and younger artists could take part in the same concert. The audience, the representatives of creative intelligentsia, discovered new names in choreography. They discussed the latest news of cultural Petersburg, the growth of the ballet artists, their creative and personal life in the relaxed atmosphere of a day-off since Mondays are traditionally non-working days for all the repertoire theaters. On those days the young artists could fulfill their creative ambitions, take a shot at solo turns, miniatures and creative experiments.  

A famous ballet master Kasyan Yaroslavich Goleizovsky continued the tradition of “Ballet Mondays” at the beginning and in the middle of the 20^th century but in Moscow: he worked a lot on the concert turns and choreographic miniatures for young artists. Such artists of the Bolshoi Theatre as Nikita Dolgushin, Vladimir Vasilyev, Yekaterina Maksimova, Elena Ryabinkina, Maya Plisetskaya and some others took part in those evening performances. It was then that the turns “Russian Dance”, “Narcissus”, “Mazurka”, “Two Preludes”, “Joy”, “Melody” and many more, that now are considered to be the classics of the Russian choreographic art, were created. 

“Ballet Mondays” in printed form are aimed at the same tasks that concert “Ballet Mondays” tried to achieve: spiritual development, promotion of the dancing art and the profession of a ballet artist and a folk dancer artist, getting people acquainted with the news of cultural life of the country and its Oblasts.

In 2016 “Kostroma” Ballet celebrates its 25^th anniversary, so the first issue of the newspaper is specially dedicated to the history of founding the Russian National Ballet “Kostroma”, the first professional dancing company on the territory of Kostroma Oblast.