05/25/2026
Kostrovitskaya / Vaganova Six Year Accelerated Program for Teachers, Ballet Masters and Choreographers.
Six Courses = Complete Program
Elementary through Advanced.
Each course covers one year's worth of material (including syllabus).
A Certificate - may be earned with or without exam.
Each course takes between 35 - 50 hours of study to complete.
Study How to Teach Methodically:
In-person on (Zoom) or
Individually - On Your Own Time - Recorded Version including private coaching - no additional fee. Coaching with Janet L Springer, Pedagogical Specialist.
All courses include: Syllabus/Manuals/Music/Demonstrations/Participation/Q&A.
5 or 7 Days per Course. ZOOM Daily schedule determined by participants and their time zones. (7 Hours - daily)
Schedule:
First Class: August 10 - August 16, 2026 (Zoom)
Second Class: On your own time/private coaching.
Third Class: On your own time/private coaching.
Fourth Class: On your own time/private coaching.
Fifth Class: August 18 - August 22, 2026 (Zoom)
Sixth Class: August 24 - August 28, 2026 (Zoom)
Questions or Enroll, Contact CDA by phone/ text /email
+1 (212) 397-1400 email: [email protected]
Website including course descriptions and tuition: www.classicaldancealliance.org
A Short Ballet History
Who was Vera Kostrovitskaya? For her first year, she had Olga Preobrajhenskaya for a teacher. Kostrovitskaya spent two years, 1921-1922 in the senior class of Agrippina Vaganova. She, Mungalova and Mlodzinskaya were the first graduates from Vaganova's class; and they were all accepted into the ballet of the Maryinsky Theater (then called the Kirov Theater). In the Academic year 1936-1937. After dancing for many years at the Kirov Theater, Kostrovitskaya began her teaching career at the Leningrad Choreographic School (now called the Vaganova School) working with a Third Year Class of Girls. At the same time, she graduated from the pedagogical department that was attached to the school that was headed by Vaganova.
Straight away Kostrovitskaya became secretary of the Method Committee, giving serious attention to the study of teaching from the point of view of method (that is to say, how steps should best be broken down and taught and in what order). She became Vaganova's assistant in 1947 when the Leningrad Conservatory (named after Rimsky-Korsakov) added a pedagogical department with Vaganova at its head. Vaganova was given the rank of Professor and she was her assistant. While continuing to teach ballet at the Leningrad Choreographic School, Kostrovitskaya conducted classes for student teachers on the method of teaching classical dance. When Vaganova died in 1952, she conducted the final course of students to its end. Then the department was closed.
Several years later, the Leningrad Choreographic School, opened a refresher course for ballet teachers who came from all over the Soviet Union, including Moscow; and it was Kostrovitskaya who taught these courses. From 1958, she was senior teacher and senior method instructor of the Leningrad Choreographic School. She retired from the school in 1969 on a pension because of a bad knee. However, she continued to teach the refresher courses for teachers, who now came from many countries outside the USSR as well. She twice headed pedagogical seminars in the Moscow Choreographic School. (Excerpt from 101 Classical Dance Lessons, Kostrovitskaya, Biographical Note by Natalia Roslavleva René.)
John Barker, American Ballet Pedagogue (John Barker School of Ballet, New York, NY), contacted Kostrovitskaya and eventually translated and published, in English (1978), the Kostrovitskaya and Pisarev School of Classical Dance. Barker also translated into English and self-published (about 1979) Kostrovitskaya's 101 Classical Dance Lessons.
Janet L Springer, Executive Director and Pedagogical Specialist, is a pedagogical student of John Barker's. She carries on this tradition today training teachers through her work at Classical Dance Alliance, New York, NY. Springer, following the work of Kostrovitskaya, has written Six Manuals illustrating the method of her Six Year Program (Syllabus).
"In a burst of joy children dance and jump, but their dances and jumps are only instinctive manifestations of joy. In order to elevate these manifestations to the heights of an art, we must give them a definite form..." (Agrippina Vaganova)
Music Cover for Beaux Arts Edition 'Valse Bleue' composed by Alfred Margis. Published by Eclipse Publishing Co. Philadelphia, PA (no date)
