Olga Preobazhenskaya

[Katharine Kanter]

OLGA PREOBAZHENSKAYA


by Elvira Roné and Fernau Hall
Marcel Dekker, New York 1978


Elvira Roné (1902-1990) was a student of Olga Preobazhenskaya (1873-1962) from the latter’s very earliest teaching days in Saint Petersburg. This was around 1912, when Preo led a private school for two or three years. Roné’s papers are, I believe, in the Deutsches Tanzarchiv at Cologne (http://www.sk-kultur.de/tanz/archiv.htm).

The late Fernau Hall was a pupil of Mary Skeaping and Vera Volkova; he wrote several books, including ‘Modern British Ballet’ that dates from the late forties, and includes a brief profile of professors such as Boris Kniassef, Margaret Craske and Vera Volkova.

Roné’s book has long been out of print, but the Beaubourg Library at Paris has one copy, as well as one copy of the above work by Fernau Hall

In 1923, Elviré Roné moved to Paris to continue working with Preo after the latter had fled Russia, and stayed with her as her assistant for near on forty years until Preo’s death in 1962.

It is curious to reflect that in 1922, Preo had originally intended to reside and teach at Berlin, but could make no headway whatsoever, interest in the choreographic art there being so slight.

Also curious to compare Preo's views with a book written in 1931 by Antonine Meunier of the Paris Opera "La Danse Classique - école française", that includes ninety contemporary photographs. There does one see the decadence of the French School at that time, the unnatural turnout, the swayback, the weak drooping arm. All in sharp contrast to what Preo was teaching.

Here are some rough notes I took last night in the library on Roné’s recollections.

Preo was a strong-minded person. Thus, and unlike many of her colleagues, she declined all “generous” offers of “protection” from aristocratic admirers. She was a hunch-back, and had other severe orthopaedic defects. These she eventually overcame thanks to her Professors Johansson and Cecchetti. She saw herself as bringing forward their line of teaching.

Under World War I, Preo studied nursing, and actually worked as a nurse to tend the war wounded.

Although she could on occasion shew anger or irritation, she never insulted students, ran them down, or made snide remarks about their body.


1/ The plastique in the Russian sense of the term, is of the essence. This means harmony of every detail of the composition, the eyes, the head, the hands, the torso, the legs, and even the finger-tips.

2/ Preo would come to every class with a notebook, in which she had written down the enchaînements for the class. She left the notebooks to Miss Roné when she died. WHERE ARE THESE NOTEBOOKS ?

The way she wanted the épaulement to be taken in each enchaînement was marked down as well.

THE TORSO COMMANDS THE MOVEMENT.

3/ Preo was extremely meticulous about the barre, as was Cecchetti.

At the barre, the manner in which the arms are held is fully as important as in the centre, and the way the barre-side arm is held, is as important as that of the free arm.

From the first day at the barre, the arms are strongly supported, so that one integrates the notion of grace at one and the same time, that one integrates the idea of the role of the arms in balance.

She would constantly correct the arm at the barre, although she wanted the head movements as limited as possible. And the hands, right down to the finger-tips, down to the degree of TENSION in the finger-tips that, she said, was critical to balance and to the creating of a firm line in certain figures.

4/ In the centre, her study of the arms and hands was very particular. As one can see from the photographs of her teaching, her à la seconde was not at shoulder-level, but rather a strongly-supported gentle decline.

The hands were an object of particular study. As the enchaînement drew to a close, the hand and fingers would mark the “full stop” of the phrase in a manner peculiar to her, that she taught.

5/ Nothing could be more unlike the way Balanchine wanted tendu, and the way Preo taught it. The tendu comes down from the hip fully through the heel, and the entire foot is articulated along the floor.

6/ The pirouette preparation was taken not from fourth in plié, but rather from fourth in lunge, but, no – forget that – not with the Balanchine arms !

7/ She would devote great attention to the eyes, their expression, and to the intensity of the gaze

8/ Most enchaînements ended in turns, the turn had to grow out of the phrase.

9/ All her life she worked with the same pianist, Evgenia Greve-Soboloevska.

10/ The adagio passages in the middle generally were set to 32 bars of music (not in the sense of double-work, but adagio). Preo would give several such enchaînements in the class, as she believed the adagio to be the touchstone of dance.

But when one was to dance allegro, there was no holding back. To dance swiftly as the wind, every detail must be clear in the mind, and every detail must be held.

To that end, one had to visualise the full enchaînement in the mind, before dancing it. It was necessary to work the mind in this manner.

11/ The batterie had to be got up to utmost speed. The enchaînement with batterie would be taken twice slowly, then twice at middling speed, and then twice at white-hot speed.

Every form of entrechat was practised, in both the odd and even numbers.

12/ In order to get up the great jumps, she would have both the man and the woman to practise jumps WITHOUT ELAN (no run-up), such as croisé in fourth devant en fondu and jumping as high as possible to attitude croisé on the other leg. This recalls the exercise, in fact it may be the very same exercise, that Bournonville, as noted down by Hans Beck, gives in the Tuesday School.

13/ In her own School at Saint Petersburg, she had had the students to come in on the Saturday and to improvise their own compositions every week. Then on the Monday, they would perform them.

Nesta Brookings at London would later adopt the same precise approach to invention.

Improvising and composing one’s own enchaînements must be developed as an intellectual skill from the earliest years.

Preo never gave exactly the same class. Her enchaînements were new creations.

14/ She sent the students out to learn instruments and solfège.

15/ She would mime long scenes from the old ballets, and have the students repeat those scenes for her.

16/ Her knowledge of anatomy was great. This is one of the reasons that she hated mindless repetition, as one cramps up in bad postures and certain muscles will tend to hyper-trophy. In this respect her approach appears to have differed from Cecchetti.

Therefore, in Russia, Preo had refused to dance Odile’s fouettés although she was a reputed technician.

She also did not believe in repeating a difficulty OUTWITH THE CONTEXT of the enchaînement in which it appeared.

17/ She was more severe with the woman, than with the man ! And she would tell jokes to the men – perhaps because we ladies tend rather to lack a sense of humour ?