The Bolshoi Ballet Academy Exhibition

On November 21, 2023, yet another event took place within the framework of the festivities dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the Academy’s foundation – the BBA Exhibition was re-opened.

The preparations for re-opening of the upgraded exhibition required a lot of ceaseless effort, which took almost a year and a half. The BBA Administration gave a lot of detailed thought the design concept, along with lighting of the exhibition space. Historical exhibits were collected and arranged, while materials archived at the Academy were digitized with the help of multimedia technologies, which helped give a new meaning to the wide collection of artefacts and materials covering 250 years of the BBA history, and present it in a state-of-the-art format.

The exhibition is located on the premises of the Academy – the ground-floor displays cover the history – from 1773 through 1960, while the first-floor exhibits highlight the modern period of the Academy’s life – from 1960 to this day.

The curators managed to digitize a document highlighting the first-ever dance lesson on December 23, 1773. That date is generally considered the day of the foundation of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. The exhibition dedicated the 19th and first half of the 20th century included pictures of students, celebrated graduates and teachers of the Academy, as well as its buildings and premises. A display dedicated to staging of ballet shows at the Academy is also with mentioning – it shows digitized posters, playbills etc., for instance, historical showbills from the first staging of Vasily Vaynonen’s Nutcracker in 1950. The exhibits now include accessories from Ekaterina Geltzer's theatrical costumes – her fan, purse and scarf, along with Ekaterina Maximova’s shoes and chiton dating back to her student days.

The first-floor exhibition is dedicated to the time Sofia Golovkina led the Academy, as well as the teachers and graduates of late 20th century. A new highlight has been added to the exhibition space – a three-dimensional model of the building in 2nd Frunzenskaya Lane in Moscow, the Academy has been occupying from 1967. The final display is dedicated to the modern days of the Academy led by Marna K. Leonova – from 2002 to this day. The contemporary stage of the teaching and training process is shown with great precision – concerts, contests, tours, graduation exams, activities of the BBA Branches in other cities – the life of the Academy in its entirety. The curators plan to create a 3D tour of the Academy for its web-site, in order to help open doors to the world of ballet for all those who are fascinated with the classical dance.