Igor Moiseyev

For the Ukrainian footballer, seeIhor Moiseyev.

In this name that followsEast Slavic naming customs, thepatronymic is Alexandrovich and thefamily name is Moiseyev.

Igor Aleksandrovich Moiseyev (Russian:Игорь Александрович Моисеев; 21 January [O.S. 8 January] 1906 – 2 November 2007) was a Soviet and Russian ballet master, dancer, choreographer and pedagogue. Moiseyev was widely acclaimed as the greatest 20th-century choreographer ofcharacter dance, a dance style similar tofolk dance but with more professionalism and theatrics.

Life and career

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Born inKyiv,Russian Empire, he was the only child of aRussian lawyer and aFrench-Romanian seamstress.^[1] His family lived in Paris until he was 8, and throughout his life he spoke to Western journalists in fluent French.^[2] Moiseyev graduated from theBolshoi Theatre ballet school in 1924 and danced in the theatre until 1939. His first choreography in the Bolshoi wasFootballer in 1930 and the last wasSpartacus in 1954.

Since the early 1930s, he staged acrobaticparades onRed Square and finally came up with the idea of establishing the Theatre of Folk Art. In 1936,Vyacheslav Molotov put him in charge of the new dance company, which has since been known as theMoiseyev Ballet. Among about 200 dances he created for his company, some humorously represented the game offootball andguerrilla warfare. After visitingBelarus he choreographed a Belarusian "folk" danceBulba ("Potato"), which over the years indeed became a Belarusian folk dance. According to theEncyclopædia Britannica, Moiseyev's work has been especially admired "for the balance that it maintained between authentic folk dance and theatrical effectiveness".

Moiseyev was namedPeople's Artist of the USSR in 1953,Hero of Socialist Labour in 1976, received theLenin Prize (1967, for the dance showA Road to the Dance), four Stalin/USSR State Prizes (1942, 1947, 1952, 1985),State Prize of the Russian Federation (1996), was awarded numerous orders and medals of the Soviet Union, Spain and many other countries. On the day of hiscentenary, Moiseyev became the first Russian to receiveOrder "For Merit to the Fatherland", 1st class — the highest civilian decoration of theRussian Federation. In 2001, he was awarded theUNESCO Mozart Medal for outstanding contribution to world music culture. He died inMoscow on 2 November 2007 aged 101.

He was married at least twice. In 1940, he married the dancerTamara Zeifert [ru] and his daughter from that marriage, Olga, was a dancer in theIgor Moiseyev Ballet.^[2] His grandson,Vladimir Borisovich Moiseyev [ru], was a performer in the Krasnoyarsk National Dance Company of Siberia as of 2015.^[3]

Today, the repertoire of the Igor Moiseyev Ballet includes choreographic works by Moiseyev, starting in 1937. Approximately, there are nearly 300 original works of Moiseyev.

Dances

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Ballets:

Polovtsian Dances (music byAlexander Borodin)
At the skating-rink (music by Johann Strauss)
Night on Bald Mountain (music byModest Mussorgsky)
Spanish ballad (music byPablo Luna)
Evening in the Tavern
Jewish suite "Family joy"

Dance paintings:

Football
Guerrillas
Day on a ship (Engine room,Yablochko)
Labour Day
The buffoons (music byNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)

and many dances

Honours and awards

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Moiseyev with Vladimir Putin at the age of 100

USSR and the Russian Federation

Hero of Socialist Labour (20 January 1976)^[4]
ThreeOrders of Lenin (1958, 1976, 1985)
Order of the October Revolution (1981)
Order of the Red Banner of Labour, twice (1940,^[5] 1966^[6])
Order of the Badge of Honour (1937)
Order "For Merit to the Fatherland";
- 1st class (21 January 2006) – for outstanding contribution to the development of domestic and international choreographic art, many years of creative activity^[7]
- 2nd class (12 June 1999) – for outstanding contribution to cultural development and in connection with the 75th anniversary of creative activity^[8]
- 3rd class (28 December 1995) – for services to the state, an outstanding contribution to the development of choreographic art^[9]
Order of Friendship of Peoples (11 April 1994) – for his great personal contribution to the development of choreographic art and world culture

Foreign

Order of Saint Alexander with a crown (Bulgaria, 1945)
Officer of the Order of Culture, 1st class (Hungary, 1954) and 2nd class (1960)
Officer of the Order of Culture (Hungary, 1989)
Commander of theHungarian Order of Merit (1997)
Commander of theOrder of "Citizenship Award" (Spain, 1996)
Order "Danaker" (Kyrgyzstan, 2007)
National Order of the Cedar (Lebanon, 1956)
Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia, 1976)
Order of the Polar Star (Mongolia) (1947)
Knight's Cross of theOrder of Polonia Restituta (Poland, 1946)
Commander of theOrder of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1996)
Officer of the Order of Culture (Romania, 1945)
Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 5th class (Ukraine, 3 March 2006) – for outstanding contribution to the development of cultural ties between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, the long-term selfless artistic activity
Order of Merit, 3rd class (Ukraine, 1999)
Order of the White Lion, 3rd class (Czechoslovakia, 1980)
Gold Star of theOrder of Brotherhood and Unity (Yugoslavia 1946)
Commander of theOrder of Merit of the Kingdom of Spain (1996)
UNESCO Mozart Medal
Order of May (2004)^[10]