(17 Apr 2016) Just a few weeks into the top creative job at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, Makhar Vaziev is making only one big promise - he will keep doing what he says Russia does best, classical ballet.
That doesn't mean, however, that the illustrious ballet company will be stuck in the past, Vaziev told The Associated Press.
He takes over the Bolshoi after a period of scandal and infighting under his predecessor Sergei Filin, who lost much of his sight as the result of an acid attack organised by a disgruntled dancer in January 2012.
The attack shocked the international ballet world and exposed infighting within the theatre.
Vaziev was brought in by the theatre's new general director, Vladimir Urin, who after months of negotiation persuaded him to leave Milan's La Scala early and return to Russia.
Despite breaking his contract at La Scala, Vaziev says he parted on good terms with a company which he says is still very dear to him.
Credited with reviving La Scala's ballet company, Vaziev seemed to flourish in Italy and his traditionalist repertoire was popular with local audiences.
Whatever the real incentive for moving, Vaziev insists it was time for him to return home to the tradition he grew up in as a dancer.
He says he brings few lessons back from his time in Italy, other than being firmly convinced there is nowhere in the world ballet is danced better than in Russia.
He says the success of the Russian tradition is based on its strict school and a performance repertoire where the company dances a lot of different ballets in fast and frequent rotation.
Trained in St. Petersburg's Mariinsky, rather than the Bolshoi, Vaziev's outsider status may be a potential strength.
Originally from Alagir, a small town in North Ossetia in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia, Vaziev was accepted in 1973 at age 12 to the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad.
After graduation, he stayed on at the Mariinsky, becoming a principal dancer before taking over as ballet director in 1995, a position he held until 2008.
He comes to the close-knit world of Moscow ballet without old alliances, which observers say may mean he can do what needs to be done to revive the company's confidence.
Vaziev's first steps at the Bolshoi will be closely watched inside and outside the theatre.
The Bolshoi has a special status in Russia, where it is considered a national treasure and a symbol of Russian culture - if not of Russia itself - and, as a state theatre, it has close links to the Kremlin.
The company will be on tour in London this summer, where Vaziev says British audiences will not see obvious signs of a new regime.
Instead, they will see what they came for - classical ballet from the Bolshoi.
Vaziev may represent a safe pair of hands, but he is keen to counter accusations of dusty traditionalism at the Bolshoi.
His company will be open to all genres of dance, he says, on pointe or not on pointe, as long as the result is world-class.
And the fact that ballet is a young, athletic discipline means dancers bring a modern sensibility to the classics - he sees it as a process which automatically refreshes the traditional repertoire.
The only thing that is needed to ensure this are conditions of honesty and openness so the dancers can work, he said in a carefully worded reference that was the closest he came to describing his solution to ridding the theatre of the rivalry, corruption and infighting which apparently characterised the past few years.
Vaziev says his main task is to create an environment at the Bolshoi where the most talented dancers can flourish.
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