The story of birth, oblivion and revival of the famous Pas de Deux
Abstract
The piece with which I graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy in 1985, was the Satanella Pas de Deux, a dance that is well-known an immensely popular in the world of Ballet.
I learned it directly from teachers who had a deep knowledge and respect for the history of the Classical Ballet, I know this piece of choreography extremely well. However, seeing it danced nowadays made me question my own memory and knowledge, because what I see dancers dance today is quite different from what I learned all those years ago.
So, the idea of my project emerged. The full-length ballet Satanella does not exist, the original choreography having been lost. Petipa’s version of Satanella was never notated, nor the Pas de Deux. The question is then - How did the famous Pas de Deux survive to this day on its own? Is the choreography I know close to the original one of Petipa?
The aim of my research in the very beginning was to answer those questions by following the history of this ballet from its creation in XIX century till today, analyse what could have triggered the changes it suffered since its sudden reappearance in 1975, and most importantly, document that 1975 version using modern technologies that are available today, because as my research shows this version has real connections to the one created over three-quarters of a century ago.
Work on that project took me on quite a journey as I have learned about Satanella’s creation, success, transformations and oblivion, reappearance of the Pas de Deux in the 1970s and its successful new life after that.
It was an incredibly interesting process, that made me realize that the work I started more like historical research, turned out to be much broader and more complex. It raised many important questions one of which was - Do we underestimate the importance of the personal knowledge of today’s professionals by our ever-greater reliance on technology? Do we use the method of passing knowledge from dancer to dancer and teacher to student enough? We call this method “traditional” in the ballet world and it exists for generations - do we still trust it? As I will try to make clear in my work, without this person-to-person way of transmitting the choreography we would not have known the Pas de Deux of Satanella that is so famous and popular today.