Igor Moiseyev To Bring Dancers

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31672, 7 May 1968, Page 21

Igor Moiseyev To Bring Dancers

Russia's famous Moiseyev i Dance Ensemble will visit New Zealand and Australia for the first time later this year. I A Tass newspaper corres-j pondent quoted the Ministry of Culture as saying that performances would begin in August and last about four n onths. The programmes will include the best numbers staged by the ensemble at different times, specifically suites and dances never shown abroad. The Moiseyev Folk Dance Ensemble was founded in

11937 when Igor Moiseyev, then a choreographer at the Bolshoi Theatre, left and set up a small troupe of his own. I He selected for his company (some fine amateur dancers | who took part in a national folk dance festival in Moscow. It was not long before the company won great popularity in the country. After the Second World War it became one of the best known in the world, performing in more than 40 countries. Its repertoire consists predominantly of folk dances of different peoples, adapted for the theatre. There are also several choreographic suites including the best-known, “Pictures from the Past” (showing the life of a city suburb in prerevolutionary Russia), “Pictures from Soviet Life” and “Guerrillas." Igor Moiseyev, who holds the highest Soviet decorations, is 62. In 1924, he finished studies at the Moscow Ballet School under Alexander Gorsky, and was admitted to the Bolshoi Company. He quickly came into prominence as a classical ballet dancer and later as a choreographer. His gifts and fertility of invention as a choreographer were most brilliantly demonstrated in the folk dance ensemble.—From the Press Association.