Igor Moiseyev, Russian Choreographer, Dies at 101
Igor Moiseyev, the Russian choreographer who created a new form of theatrical folk dance and whose troupe was one of the most popular dance companies of the 20th century, died today in Moscow. He was 101.
Igor Moiseyev, a Russian choreographer, in 2006.
His death was announced by the troupe’s director, Yelena Shcherbakova, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, and it drew condolences from President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Moiseyev died in a hospital after being unconscious for three days, Ms. Shcherbakova said.
The Moiseyev Dance Company’s energy, virtuosity, precision and ingenious distillation of folk styles from many lands set audiences cheering worldwide. When the troupe made its New York debut in 1958, presented by the impresario Sol Hurok at the Metropolitan Opera House, it was the first major Soviet dance group to visit the United States and helped usher in a new era of cultural exchange. John Martin, the dance critic of The New York Times, pronounced the debut “stupendous.”
Ed Sullivan gave the troupe national exposure during that same trip, booking the dancers for a full hour on his television variety show “Toast of the Town” (later renamed “The Ed Sullivan Show”). The viewers’ response was so enthusiastic that he brought the troupe back for an encore performance.
Although Mr. Moiseyev’s choreography derived from folk sources, he created his works for professional dancers: as observers noted from the start, no peasants or villagers ever danced with such theatrical flair.
Mr. Moiseyev’s intent as a choreographer was to heighten folk steps to create populist dance with immediate appeal. Summing up the New York season of 1958, Mr. Martin wrote: “Moiseyev is an astute folklorist and a good artist. His company, 100 strong, is warm, vital, vivacious, remarkably trained, energetic beyond belief and, above all, performers deluxe. The result is a marvelous show.”
Igor Aleksandrovich Moiseyev was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1906, the only child of a Russian lawyer and a French-Romanian seamstress. Until he was 8 years old, his family lived in Paris, and throughout his life he spoke to Western journalists in fluent French. After the family returned to Russia, Mr. Moiseyev studied ballet privately in Moscow, then entered the Bolshoi Ballet School in 1921. From 1924 until 1939, he was a member of the Bolshoi Ballet, sympathetic to the efforts of innovative Soviet choreographers of the 1920s and ‘30s.
He developed his own interest in choreography, and his early ballets — among them “The Footballer” (1930), “Salammbô” (1932) and “Three Fat Men” (1935) — were noted for their experimentation, drama and characterization. In 1936, Mr. Moiseyev was appointed dance director of the Moscow Theater for Folk Art, from which emerged, a year later, the Soviet Union’s first folk-dance ensemble. The troupe originally included many amateurs, but it soon employed professionally trained dancers. Officially known as the State Academic Ensemble of Popular Dance of the Soviet Union, the troupe was usually billed in the West simply as the Moiseyev Dance Company.
Most of Mr. Moiseyev’s works were inspired by the traditions of the various regions in the Soviet Union. But he also created dances with Chinese, Cuban, Sicilian and Argentine themes, and during the early ‘60s his dancers amused American audiences by performing the Virginia reel and a parody of rock-and-roll.
Mr. Moiseyev attributed his dancers’ virtuosity and versatility to their training in classical ballet, which he described in a 1970 interview as “the grammar of movement.”
“With ballet technique as a base,” he added, “one can do everything.”
He continued, in fact, to work with traditional ballet companies throughout his career. In 1958, Mr. Moiseyev staged his own version of “Spartacus” for the Bolshoi Ballet.
In addition to directing his folk ensemble, from 1967 to 1971, he headed a classical ballet troupe, which was originally known as the Young Ballet and later as the Classical Ballet Company. Among its members were Aleksandr Filipov and Aleksandr Godunov, both of whom later joined American Ballet Theater in New York.
Nonetheless, it was always Mr. Moiseyev’s theatricalized folk dances that brought him international attention and acclaim. All were stunning to behold, the serious as well as the purely festive. A favorite with audiences everywhere was the dramatic “Partisans,” which was both a tribute to Soviet guerrilla fighters in World War II and a technical tour de force that required dancers to imitate the gait of mounted soldiers whose “horses” were invisible under their cloaks.
The Moiseyev company consistently received critical acclaim. Yet as its repertory became familiar, the pioneering dancers of the original troupe were replaced by younger performers more concerned with technique than with motivating impulse. Reviewers began to notice limitations in the troupe’s esthetic approach.
Controversies also developed over the ideological content of Mr. Moiseyev’s work. In 1965, the drama critic Robert Brustein defended the company in his book “Seasons of Discontent.” He conceded that its presentations were “without psychological depth” but welcomed its presence in New York, remarking how the performances were in stark contrast to “the general deadness of life and desperation of spirit among the masses of this grim metropolis.”
Others, however, found Mr. Moiseyev’s happy folk to be in line with an accent on the positive required by Socialist Realism.
As a popular Soviet cultural export, the Moiseyev company was occasionally the target of American groups that protested Soviet policies. Most such demonstrations involved only picketing, but others turned violent. At a Moiseyev opening in 1986, members of the Jewish Defense League threw a tear-gas grenade into the audience at the Metropolitan Opera House.
A defender of expressive dramatic content in choreography, Mr. Moiseyev reiterated the dominant Soviet esthetics of the cold-war period when he deplored abstraction in ballet. But Mr. Moiseyev did more than parrot officially sanctioned views. In 1959, he was reprimanded by the Soviet authorities for delivering a speech in which he maintained that far from being inherently decadent, American culture was blessed with vigor. In 1967, he ruffled the Soviet cultural authorities by asserting in an article in Pravda that Soviet ballet was deadened by its preoccupation with princes and princesses and its unwillingness to tackle contemporary themes.
Mr. Moiseyev married the dancer Tamara Zeifert in 1940; she became his choreographic assistant. Other members of the company included their daughter, Olga Moiseyeva, and her husband, Boris Petrov. Mr. Moiseyev married a second time, and his wife is among his survivors, Ms. Shcherbakova said.
In poor health in recent years, he was rarely seen in public. But he made an appearance at a concert in Moscow last year to celebrate his 100th birthday. On his centenary, he received the Order of Merit, Russia’s highest civilian decoration.
Mr. Moiseyev had earlier been named People’s Artist of the U.S.S.R., and his honors also included the Dance Magazine Award in the United States, the Lenin Prize and three Stalin Prizes. A creatively passionate man, Mr. Moiseyev said in a 1965 interview: “Everything I’ve done, I love. If you’re not in love, you can’t create. And if you’re calm when you’ve created something, you can rest assured that you’ve created nothing.”
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