Boris Eifman

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Yakovlevich and the family name is Eifman.

Boris Yakovlevich Eifman^[a] (born 22 July 1946) is a Russian choreographer and artistic director. He has done more than fifty ballet productions.

Boris Eifman
Борис Эйфман
Born	(1946-07-22) July 22, 1946 (age 79) Rubtsovsk, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian Jew
Citizenship	Russia
Alma mater	Leningrad Conservatory
Occupation(s)	Ballet master, choreographer
Employer	Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet

Biography

Eifman was born in Rubtsovsk, Siberia, where his engineer father had been assigned to work in a tank factory.^[1] In 1953, the family moved to Kishinev, Moldavia. Eifman graduated from the Kishinev Ballet School in 1964.^[2] He performed as a dancer with the Kishinev Opera and Ballet Theatre; and went on to study choreography at the Leningrad Conservatory, where his teacher was choreographer Georgi Aleksidze. Eifman graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1972. He then became a ballet master at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, from 1972-1977. In 1977, he received permission to found his own company, originally known as Leningrad Theatre of Contemporary Ballet. The troupe was known by various names, but today its official title is St. Petersburg State Ballet Theatre of Boris Eifman, or simply Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg when on tour. In addition to choreographing for his own company, Eifman has created ballets for the Maly Theatre of Opera and Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, and New York City Ballet, among others. He has also made dances for film and television.^[2]

Eifman staged his first productions in 1970 (the ballets “Towards Life” to the music of D. B. Kabalevsky and “Icarus” to the music of A. Chernov and V. Arzumanov), then followed “Brilliant Divertissement” (1971) to the music of M. I. Glinka, “Fantasy” (1972) to the music of Antony Arensky, “Gayane” to the music of A. I. Khachaturian (1972, diploma work), — on the stage of the Maly Opera and Ballet Theater in Leningrad.

From 1971 to 1977, Eifman worked as a choreographer at the Leningrad Choreographic School and continued staging productions on the stage of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theatre: Russian Symphony (1973) to music by V. Kalinnikov, Meetings (1975) to music by R.K. Shchedrin, The Firebird (1975) to music by I.F. Stravinsky, Interrupted Song (1976) to music by I. Kalnins, ... Beautiful Impulses of the Soul (1977) to music by R. Shchedrin. Eifman became widely known after the successful staging of the play The Firebird, which was also shown on tour in Moscow and Japan. During these same years, Eifman became the author of the ballet films Variations on a Rococo Theme, Icarus, Three Compositions, Bloody Sun, and Brilliant Divertissement.

His Own Theater In 1977, Eifman managed to create his own theater, New Ballet, at Lenconcert, which in the 1990s was renamed the St. Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theater under the direction of Boris Eifman, and which he directs to this day. This author's theater did not have its own permanent premises for a long time. Already in the late 1970s, Eifman staged the following performances with this troupe: Only Love to the music of Rodion Shchedrin, Temptation to the compositions of the Yes group (mainly Rick Wakeman), Under the Cover of Night to the music of Bela Bartok, Interrupted Song to the music of I. Kalniņš, Two-Voice to the early compositions of the Pink Floyd group (mainly written by Syd Barrett), The Firebird (1978) to the music of I. Stravinsky and Perpetual Motion (1979) to the music of A. Khachaturian. The staging of ballet programs with a combination of academic and pointeless choreography and the use of musical compositions of modern progressive rock was also perceived as an obvious innovation in those years.

By the end of the 1990s, the theater began to tour New York, which eventually became annual. The theater's repertoire was distinguished by its extraordinary genre diversity, including performances based on classical works of Russian literature, children's performances and rock ballets.

Boris Eifman Dance Academy The idea of creating an innovative choreographic school was realized on January 24, 2011, when the Governor of St. Petersburg V. I. Matvienko signed Resolution No. 76 "On the establishment of the St. Petersburg State Educational Institution of Secondary Vocational Education Technical School "Boris Eifman Dance Academy". On May 19, 2011, the choreographer personally laid the foundation for the future Dance Academy. At the end of January 2013, an active information campaign began to recruit the first students and alumni of the Academy. The selection rounds were held in the spring. The opening of the Boris Eifman Dance Academy took place on September 2, 2013, and the first graduation of professional ballet dancers took place in 2021.

Boris Eifman. Israel. Behind the Scenes. Lahat Opera. 2024 In 2022, the Academy opened new teaching laboratories and classrooms: stage lighting, basic electrical engineering, theatrical costume, drawing and painting, makeup and hairstyling, hairstyling

Works

• Gayané (1972)
• Firebird (1975)
• Towards Life
• The Meetings
• The Beautiful Impulses of the Soul
• Only Love (1977)
• The Song Broken (1977)
• Double Voice (1977)
• Firebird (1978)
• Movement Eternal (1979)
• Boomerang (1979)
• The Idiot (1980)^[3]
• Autographs (1981)
• Day of Madness, or, The Marriage of Figaro (1982)
• The Legend (1982)
• Metamorphoses (1983)
• Twelfth Night (1984)
• Second Lieutenant Romashov (1985)
• Intrigues of Love (1986)
• The Master and Margarita (1987)
• Adagio (1987)
• Pinocchio (1989)^[4]
• Les Intrigues de l'Amour (1989)^[5]
• The Passions of Man (1990)
• Thérèse Raquin, aka The Murderers (1991)^[6]
• Tchaikovsky: the Mystery of Life and Death (1993)^{[7][8][9][10][11]}
• The Karamazovs (1995)^[12][13]
• Red Giselle (1997)^{[14][15][16][17][18][19]}
• My Jerusalem (1998)^[20][21][22]
• Requiem (1998)^[23][24]
• Russian Hamlet: the Son of Catherine the Great (1999)^{[25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]}
• Don Juan and Molière (2000)^[35][36]
• Don Quixote or Fantasies of a Madman^[37]
• Who's Who (2003)^{[38][39][40][41][42]}
• Musagète (2004)^[43]
• Anna Karenina (2005)^{[44][45][46][47]}
• The Seagull (2007)^{[48][49][50][51][52][53]}
• Onegin (2009)^{[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61]}
• Rodin
• Up and Down
• The Pygmalion Effect (2019)^[62]

Honours and awards

• People's Artist of Russia (Russia, 1995)
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd (2012) class
• Order of Honour
• Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (France, 1999)
• Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2003)
• State Prize of the Russian Federation - 1998
• Theatre Award of Saint Petersburg "Golden Soffit" (1995, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2012)
• "Golden Mask" (Theatre Union of Russia, 1996 and 1999)
• Award "Triumph "(1996)
• Prix Benois de la Danse for "Best choreographer of 2005" (2006)
• Order of "Peace and Harmony" (Russia, 1998)

Footnotes

1. Russian: Борис Яковлевич Эйфман; Ukrainian: Борис Яковлевич Эйфман, romanized: Oleh Kostiantynovych Antonov.