The Last Imperial Ball (1903)
(Anita Makuszewska)
During the period of Europeanization of Russia, court dances accompanied the radical social changes initiated by Peter the Great becoming the important link between Eastern and Western cultures. The process led to the noticeable dissonance between the practices of ancient dancing rituals and folk theatre and the new culture of court entertainment: spontaneity and freedom of pliaska stood in opposition to dance performed according to a fixed order (Lotman 1980, Levitt 2009, Sirotkina 2010).
In the 19th century ceremonies and theatrical productions confirmed that country emerged from the isolation striving to strengthen its position as a European and colonial power. This permutation of real political and military intentions with music and dance established the role of performing arts as a means of promoting scenarios of power (Wortman 2006).
The first attempt to evoke national heritage on the stage was made by Arthur Saint-Léon in The Little Humpbacked Horse (1864) with dancers performing authentic (and imaginary) folk dances.
However, the ultimate manifestation of nostalgia of pre-Petrine Russia was revealed in the Imperial Ball (1903) - the last bow of the Romanovs which marked the eve of modern empire.
Anita Makuszewska, Warsaw, Poland
Anita Makuszewska graduated from the Warsaw Ballet School and the M. Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory of Music in St. Petersburg at the ballet directing department. She has more than twenty years’ experience in promoting and teaching the art of ballet in Poland and abroad. Currently she is lecturing at the Faculty of Psychology at the University SWPS (Warsaw, Poland).
