The Moiseev Ensemble: history and modernity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The Igor Moiseev Folk Dance Ensemble is a state academic one. It was founded in 1937 and is considered the first choreographic group in the world whose professional activity is the interpretation and popularization of dance folklore of different peoples of the world.

Formation of Moiseev

As a 14-year-old teenager, Igor and his father came to the ballet studio of Vera Masolova, formerly a ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre. Three months later, she and Igor Moiseev came to the Choreographic College at the Bolshoi Theater, telling its director that the boy should study with them. And he was enrolled there after the entrance exam.

After graduating from a technical school at the age of 18, Igor began to dance at the Bolshoi Theater, and at 24 he was already its choreographer, who staged several concerts. However, with the advent of the new leadership, he was forbidden to stage new dances without being removed from office due to his youth and fear of competition with him.

In 1936, on the recommendation of the head of the Committee for the Arts and with the support of Molotov Moiseev,who has proposed his ideas for the development of folk dance in the country, is appointed to a new position. He becomes the head of the choreographic part of the Theater of Folk Art, which was just created.

To hold the All-Union Festival of Folk Dances, Moiseev gathered the best performers from all the republics of the Soviet Union, bringing them to Moscow. After the resounding success of the festival, the idea came to him: to create a state-level folk dance ensemble.

From the history of the creation of the Moiseev Ensemble

For the sake of working in a dance group, the academic stage and the positions of choreographer and soloist of the Bolshoi Theater were left. The most talented of the festival participants were invited to the Moiseev Ensemble. As the main task, the leader saw the popularization of folklore dances of the peoples of the Soviet Union, which were creatively processed.

To study folklore, artists went on expeditions, recording dances and songs throughout the country. Consultations were held with historians, musicologists, folklorists, musicians to recreate the exact samples of folk dance art.

The theater was founded on February 10, 1937. It was on this day that the first rehearsal took place in it. The first concert took place on the stage of the Moscow Hermitage Theater in the same year, on August 29. Initially, the group included a small orchestra playing folk instruments and 30 dancers.

The ensemble quickly gained popularity and began to perform at government banquets. During one of them, in 1940year, I. V. Stalin asked how the team was doing. Igor Moiseev complained to him about the lack of a suitable rehearsal base, because sometimes he had to prepare for concerts on the landings.

The very next day after this conversation, the team was asked to choose any of the capital's buildings. Moiseev chose the house where the Meyerhold Theater used to be, which was in a dilapidated state. Three months later, it was repaired and rehearsals began.

During the war years

With the beginning of the war, Moiseev offered to perform at the front for the fighters, but he was refused. The ensemble was evacuated to the Sverdlovsk region, where they performed at factories that were in evacuation. At the same time, many dancers were sent to the front, but the performances continued. Sometimes there were three concerts a day.

For some time Moiseev himself performed, but then his strength for both dancing and staging was not enough. He decided to start creating a professional folk dance school, the first in the Soviet Union. The ensemble toured all over the country, several of its numbers were included in the permanent repertoire. Among them, one can single out the “Russian Suite”, “Great Naval Suite”.

The team earned a lot of money - 1.5 million rubles, which he sent to the construction of the GANT USSR tank. After the return of the Moiseev ensemble to the capital in 1943, a folk dance school was opened, whose graduates worked both in the ensemble itself and in other groups.

After the war

It was in the post-war years that the peak of popularity of the Moiseev Ensemble was observed. He became the hallmark of the USSR, being the first to visit more than 60 countries on tour. These were, for example, Finland, China, Great Britain, France, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, USA, India, countries of South America.

For the program called "The Road to Dance" the ensemble received the title of academic, and in 1987 it was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples. After a tour in Israel in 1989, diplomatic relations were established between this country and the USSR.

Modernity

Igor Moiseev worked at his post for more than 70 years, until his death in 2007, two months before he was 102 years old. Even while in a hospital bed, he watched videos of rehearsals and gave recommendations to the dancers. After the death of the leader, the dance group received his name.

The Moiseev Ensemble continued to work, performing on tour in Russia and abroad. In 2011 he was awarded the Italian choreographic prize and the UNESCO medal. Since 2011, the team leader is Elena Shcherbakova. In 2012, the seventh generation worked in it, 90 ballet dancers and 32 musicians in the orchestra, the ensemble's repertoire included more than 300 original numbers. In 2015, he earned the status of a particularly valuable cultural heritage site of the peoples of the Russian Federation.