Berioska Dance Company of Moscow Australian tours (1966 - )

Stringer, Walter: Artists of the Berioska Dance Company of Moscow [5], 1966

Research Materials | Other Resources

The Berioska Dance Company of Moscow, also known as the Berioska Dance Company of Russia during its second tour to Australia in 1977, first toured to Australia in 1966. Initially brought to Australia by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd., Edgley & Dawe and Gosconcert Moscow, the company was accompanied by the Russian National Orchestra and maintained a cast of seventy dancers.

Under the artistic direction and choreography of Nazezhda Nadezhdina and the musical direction of Alexei Ilyin the company’s 1966 tour commenced in Melbourne at the Her Majesty’s Theatre. The program lists the following works: Berioska (a young birch tree), Topotoocha (Stamping Dance), The Girls’ Ring Dance – The Chainlet (Tsepotshka), Qaudrille (Kaja), The Bachelors, Snow Flakes (Snieglok), Handkerchief Dance, Proschai Maslennitsa, The Old Russian Waltz – Berioska, Troika, The Merry-go-round (carousel), The Knitters (Pryalitsa), The Buffoons (Balagouri), Lebiodushka (Young Swan Girls), The Russian Souvenirs (Rousskiye Souveniri), and At the Autumn Fair (Na Ossennei Yarmarke). The company’s tour included Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth.

A promotional program for the tour notes: ‘Madame Nadezhdina views her ethnic sources with a keen theatrical eye. “There is a long road,” she observes, “from ethnography to art”… “I picked out the movement from Russian folk lore, and used it in the women’s reels”, she recalls. Madame maintains it is not taken exactly from folk dances, as it needs schooling to know what to do with the body'.

See also: J. C. Williamson Ltd.

---

Research Materials

Ephemera | Manuscript | Picture | All

---

Other resources

Find more about Berioska Dance Company of Moscow Australian tours in:

• Internet - Google
• Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
• Pictures - Picture Australia