Governorate Ballet School

Destiny does not grant every person a lifework. We were lucky to have its favour.

Many parents expect supplementary education teachers to help them bring their children up and to develop their personality so they take their kids to amateur performance and talent groups; very often these are dance studios. Thanks to choreography classes young students become more graceful, artistic, musical, disciplined and sociable. Gradually the art of dance enters their lives to stay forever and fills their hearts with love.

As many people of our age born during the times of the Soviet Union when it was at its highest, we were happy to experience life at Pioneers’ Houses. Back then we could not even imagine that later we would start to create our own world of beauty.

Many factors led us to the idea of the Russian National Ballet and Dance College and its physical implementation.

Now we do not look back choosing rather forward movement. However we cherish every step we made in the past - may be even not so distant past.

It all started with the meeting of two people with two different lives but with a common love for each other and the art of dance. The so called make-or-break 90s opened the horizons for many people and promised a comfortable existence in the nearest future. People set up cooperatives and private companies giving them a fashionable foreign name ‘business’. Some did well, others lost everything they had. We were young and energetic and longing for an immediate action but the theatre world, where we both wanted to pursue career, was going through hard times which doubled the risk of any start-ups. With the situation at hand we had many different options but the only life-changing way was the one which led us to our dearest dream, to setting up our own choreographic company. Perhaps it was our desperate enthusiasm and enormous desire that helped our dream come true. The first in Russia private theatre of folk dance with the name “Kostroma” came into being.

The name “Kostroma” was chosen for a reason. The ancient town situated on the banks of the Volga, the cradleland of the Romanovs family, representing real Rus with its wealth of history, customs and traditions, once gave home to our family and our cause. It is here that we found our inspiration and carried it over to the repertoire of our company thus enriching it with the power of folk spirit.

Naturally there were some problems occasionally. Nevertheless “Kostroma” established itself quite smoothly on stage in Russia. As though destiny led us and prompted the right direction. We met new people and made partners. The system of cross-charges which used to be popular with small business imposed certain obligations and gave momentum for the right direction. We felt that we were responsible for every step we made before those staff members, artists, audience, partners and the city who believed in us and our course. We made mistakes and tried again in search for our identity and our style. We experimented and learned new things.

We have always tried to listen to our intuition. This invaluable gift led us to success, gave us confidence to risk and hope to believe. To our mind any person who has intuition is infinitely rich because relying on it he or she gets an opportunity to bravely move forward to meet their dream.

Setting up “The Governorate Ballet School” (college) affiliated to the autonomous non-commercial organization “Russian National Ballet “Kostroma” and Children Dance School is the result of our systematic development. Now that we have gained people’s recognition we are proud of our ballet and the only professional choreography education institution in Kostroma governorate. We provide more than a hundred places for work and study. We have what we have long waited for and can make use of our assets, gain potential and improve life conditions of the personnel and the artists. Our close-knit team is ready to face other challenges of the art of dance.