About our Academy
Our ballet academy is based in St Petersburg, Russia since 1994. The founder and director of the school all these years – Vladislav Kuramshin.
The academy is a unique institution, because children start their professional ballet education here from the age of 5-6 (pre-professional - from the age 3-4), and by 10-11 years old our pupils achieve such success that they can perform the most difficult elements of classical choreography, such as, for example, 32 fouettes, the golden standard of ballet technique (not every adult ballerina can do it!).
Our school is a private educational institution. A collaboration between the foundation "Anna Pavlova" (The Netherlands) together with the ballet theatre "Choreographic miniatures" (Russia) opened in 2015 in The Netherlands 2 studios to realise our project - to show the ballet performances of the theatre «Choreographic miniatures» to Dutch children.
At the repertoire of our school - the following ballets, created by T. Petrova and V. Kuramshin:
"Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker" (music by P. Tchaikovsky),
"Nutcracker"
"Snow White and the seven dwarfs" (music by J.Massenet, A. Dvorak, C. Saint-Saenz and J. Offenbach),
"The Three Little Pigs" (music by modern composers),
"Snow Queen" and "Crazy dolls, or New tin soldier "(the original music by K. Vasiliev),
"Little Red Riding Hood" (music by K. Vassilyev)
"Crazy Dolls or New Tin Soldier" (music by K. Vassilyev)
Song-ballet (musical)" Small Cafe "(ballet, created for the songs of the authors/singers A. Kivin and N. Markov),
Grand-pas from “Paquita” (music by L. Minkus)
Big and interesting concert program.
At the beginning the school in St. Petersburg was named in honour of the Russian choreographer Leonid Jakobson to pay tribute to the great master, as the name Jacobson has not been immortalised and could be forgotten. But now we have decided to name our school “Vladislav Kuramshin's Academy of Classical Russian Ballet" - by the name of our leader.
Our ballet academy has been on ballet tours with great success many times in USA, The Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Turkey, Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, Spain, Finland and Croatia. It repeatedly became the winner of various international ballet festivals and competitions in different countries as well.
The school founded the International Ballet Competitions - "Young Russia Grand Prix" and "Anna Pavlova".
The winners, laureates and diploma winners of the contests in different years were the representatives of such countries as France, Germany, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Uzbekistan, The Netherlands, Austria, Korea and Russia. Among students of our ballet school - a lot of laureates and diploma winners of different International ballet competitions in France, USA, Italy, Latvia, Russia: Tatiana Vasilieva, Daria Shelekhova, Marina and Elena Lusina, Tatiana Belyaeva, Maria Mayorova, Nikita Velikanov, Maria Andreeva, Xenia Zhiganshina, Nikita Vronskikh, Polina Mitryashina, Jiulia Mikhaylova, Lada Sartakova, Maria Bulanova, Nikolai Didenko, David Sobolevskii, David Vermeulen, Victoria Fedorova, Anastasia Tyutyukova, Anna Gureeva and other.
Some examples:
In 2008-2009, student of our school Xenia Zhiganshina, despite her young age - she was just 14 years old - twice won the third price at the prestigious ballet competitions - Russian, in Krasnoyarsk, and the International in Moscow. For these responsible ballet contests Xenia has been prepared by teachers Tatiana Petrova and Vladislav Kuramshin.
In November 2009, another student, Yulia Mikhaylova (11 years old) won the first prize at the Regional International ballet competition YAGP-2010 in Italy. There was, also, concert miniature, "Midsummer Night's Dream", created by Tatiana Petrova and Vladislav Kuramshin, that received third place of this contest. In the category of the solos were also Lada Sartakova, (7years old young dancer!), who came to the finals and was selected for performances in the gala concerts in North and South America.
Yulia Mikhailova competed in the final YAGP-2010 (Young America Grand Prix) in New York and entered the top ten. In the spring of 2010 she won the Grand Prix at the International Ballet Competition in Latvia (Europe), "Rigas pavasaris 2010". And her teachers - T. Petrova and V. Kuramshin received honorary degrees for their contribution to the world of choreography.
Lada Sartakova won a second prize of YAGP USA/New York final (teachers - T. Petrova and V. Kuramshin).
The teachers of our ballet academy in St. Petersburg - former dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet Theatre (Moscow) and Kirov Ballet (Mariinsky opera and ballet theatre), teachers of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography.