05.07.2012
Alla Osipenko celebrated her 80th birthday
On 16 June the great ballerina Alla Osipenko celebrated her 80th birthday. The event was marked by warm tributes from her colleagues at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, where in recent years she has worked with the soloists. Her very presence is conducive to a creative atmosphere in the ballet company, and in the theatre as a whole.
Vladimir Kekhman, General Director:
“Alla Osipenko, working with you has been a great honour. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you good health and many more years of successful work ahead. May your invaluable experience and perspicacious view of the world serve as an example for many generations of ballet artists”.
Irina Perren, Prima Ballerina:
“I feel that I knew Alla Osipenko as a person before knowing her as a teacher. She is an amazing woman: unique and genuinely compassionate. She always supports me in everything, because she understands me and perceives me as a ballerina and as a pupil. In working with her there is always more love and wisdom than theory and rules, which makes you value her as a professional even more. We have created many roles together, and in each of them I now dance like my teacher to a certain extent. That is probably where her talent lies: to be with us all the time, on the stage and in life”.
Valeria Zapasnikova, ballerina:
“I started working with Alla Osipenko immediately after graduating from the Vaganova Ballet Academy. It was incredible: not long before, we had been told about her in lectures on the history of ballet, and here I was as a young dancer being given the opportunity to work with this ballet legend. I trained with her for the part of Valeria in Spartacus. It involved a great deal of hard work, but the result was a great success: when the curtain fell, the audience was on its feet applauding. The actual process of working with Alla Osipenko is absolutely fascinating. She is a very modern person: nobody is afraid to speak their mind. There is none of the constraint that can prevent a teacher and a pupil from understanding each other. Alla Osipenko has the ability to describe in words how a part should be danced without always demonstrating the movements; this gift of finding the right word is also evident in her wonderful stories about ballet. As a teacher, Alla Osipenko is very restrained: she never raises her voice, always understands any problems I may have, and assures me that she was just the same”.
Vladimir Kekhman, General Director:
“Alla Osipenko, working with you has been a great honour. From the bottom of my heart, I wish you good health and many more years of successful work ahead. May your invaluable experience and perspicacious view of the world serve as an example for many generations of ballet artists”.
Irina Perren, Prima Ballerina:
“I feel that I knew Alla Osipenko as a person before knowing her as a teacher. She is an amazing woman: unique and genuinely compassionate. She always supports me in everything, because she understands me and perceives me as a ballerina and as a pupil. In working with her there is always more love and wisdom than theory and rules, which makes you value her as a professional even more. We have created many roles together, and in each of them I now dance like my teacher to a certain extent. That is probably where her talent lies: to be with us all the time, on the stage and in life”.
Valeria Zapasnikova, ballerina:
“I started working with Alla Osipenko immediately after graduating from the Vaganova Ballet Academy. It was incredible: not long before, we had been told about her in lectures on the history of ballet, and here I was as a young dancer being given the opportunity to work with this ballet legend. I trained with her for the part of Valeria in Spartacus. It involved a great deal of hard work, but the result was a great success: when the curtain fell, the audience was on its feet applauding. The actual process of working with Alla Osipenko is absolutely fascinating. She is a very modern person: nobody is afraid to speak their mind. There is none of the constraint that can prevent a teacher and a pupil from understanding each other. Alla Osipenko has the ability to describe in words how a part should be danced without always demonstrating the movements; this gift of finding the right word is also evident in her wonderful stories about ballet. As a teacher, Alla Osipenko is very restrained: she never raises her voice, always understands any problems I may have, and assures me that she was just the same”.
