ELIZAVETA SURITS

STUDIOS OF PLASTIC DANCE

This article is concerned with the development of the plastic dance studio in Russia during the 1910s and 1920s, especially during the years immediately following the October Revolution. While the concentration here is on the three schools of Inna Samoilovna Chernetskaia (1894- 1963) (Fig. 50), Liudmila Nikolaevna Alexeeva (1890-1964) (Figs. 51, 52), and Vera Vladimirovna Maiia (dates unknown) (Figs. 53, 54), some reference is also made to their colleagues and parallel activities in Moscow and Petrograd/Leningrad as weN as to the pre-revolutionary heritage. After all, Chernetskaia, Alexeeva, and Maiia all began their study of plastic dance in the mid-1910s and owed much to the precedents set by the early Russian Duncanists such as Francesca Beata and Elia Rabenek. In December 1904 Isadora Duncan made her first visit to Russia, per- forming to eager and appreciative audiences who were deeply im- pressed by the free movement of her dance and by her protest against conventional form. Hoping to restore what she felt was a lost harmony, Duncan developed dance with a natural beauty quite unlike the artifice of traditional ballet, and although she was inspired by depictions on Greek bas-reliefs and vases, her ultimate goal was not the resurrection of antique dances, but rather freedom of expression and the translation of emotion into dance, emotion that derived from music (Figs. 55, 56). Before very long Duncan had many Russian disciples, imitators, and epigones, and, certainly, not all of these bosonozhki (lit., "barefooters") deserve serious attention. Some performed in cafes chantants where the main attraction was strip-tease, others managed dance studios of a dubi- ous professional level. As Sergei Volkonsky wrote: "People set up courses, gave advice and instructions on a whim. A great number of lan- gorous, lady dance teachers sporting strange outfits and hairdos came on the scene. You could find just about any 'system.' Like industrious bees these teachers gathered from all over the place. I heard about Duncan, about Duncan's sister, and about Delsarte as well as about Dalcroze,"1 Still, there were also very commendabie schools and studios of plastic dance operative in the 1910s, whose pupils played a crucial role in the

1. S. Volkonsky, 'Studiia," Plastika i muzyka (Moscow), No. 5 (1911), ), p. 19. Moscow studio movement of the 1920s. Especially important were those of Beata and Rabenek. Unfortunately, little is known about Beata and her school, although the GAKhN archives (State Academy of the Arts) contain a questionnaire that she filled out in 1927.2 From her Italian responses we learn that Beata began studying plastic dance in 1906-07 under Alexei Bobrinsky, who, according to her, was then working at the Malyi Theater in Moscow. In 1908 she travelled to Italy to "study plastic movement in museums" and in 1909 opened a school in Moscow, although she herself continued to take classes. Beata writes that she mastered the method of Elizabeth Duncan (Isadora's sister), learned rhythmics from Emile Jaques- Daleroze in Hellerau and Swedish gymnastics from a certain Professor Paoli, and, furthermore, that she was familiar with the art of Alexander Sacharoff and Clotilde von Derp (see P. Veroli, "Alexander Sacharoff as Symbolist Dancer," in this volume). Beata's first public performance was in 1909 and her first class of students made its debut in 1913 with a performance of Alexander Glazunov's Four Seasons. In 1913 Beata was working in the Free Theater and from the questionnaire we learn that her studio functioned until 1919 and that through 1924 she headed the De- partment of Plastic Movement at the State Theater Technicum in Moscow, where she prepared "plastic compositions to the works of Borodin, Gliere, and Miaskovsky.'3 At the same time she taught dance to children, particularly at kindergarten level. More substantial information is forthcoming on Elia (Eli and Eila) Ivanovna Rabenek (Knipper-Rabenek, nee Bartels) and her troupe. Daughter of a German baker who had settled in Moscow, Rabenek chose her future career after seeing one of Duncan's performances in 1904, whereupon she began to dance as the American dancer did and even to dress in tunic and sandals. Later she travelled to Berlin to study with Elizabeth Duncan and, under the name of her first husband, Knipper, was soon recognized as a premier Duncanist. In 1906 she was invited to teach plastic movement at the the Moscow Art Theatre, where, inciden- tally, her students included Alisa Koonen:

The exercises in Duncanist plastics were a real celebration. They were conducted by one of Isadora Duncan's favorite students, Eli Ivanovna Knipper, who had just returned from abroad. A very cul- tured individual and a wonderful teacher, she could make lessons interesting and exciting. All the exercises, from the most basic to the

2. F. Beata, GAKhN Questionnaire. Archives of Elizaveta Surits, Moscow. 3. lVovyi zritel (Moscow), No. 17, May 6, 1924, p. 6.