The Russians Are Coming

Abstract

European teachers had a tremendous influence on the development of ballet in the United States through at least the mid-twentieth century. They had to adapt to the commercial American environment in which ballet class was a commodity, available to anyone to buy, regardless of talent. Still, they handed down the Italian or British or Russian technique in a traditional master-apprentice relationship. These classical modes of ballet pedagogy did alter to some degree in response to conditions in the United States. The cachet of taking ballet class with European teachers who could claim a direct link to the lineage of ballet pedagogy persisted well into the twentieth century.