Maris Liepa Charitable Foundation

MARIS LIEPA CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

PROFILE
 

The Maris Liepa Charitable Foundation to promote the Development of Ballet was set up in 1996, the year of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Russian dancer, choreographer and teacher Maris Eduardovich Liepa (1936-1989). This was an event celebrated by ballet people and fans the world over. A great many of Liepa’s plans and ideas remain unrealized and, during preparations for the jubilee celebrations, it was decided to establish a public charitable foundation with the aim of putting into effect, as fully as possible, these ideas and creative projects which have been inherited by Maris’s children, Andris and Ilze, outstanding ballet dancers in their own right. The Foundation’s official opening and inauguration concert took place at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia.
 

The aim of the Foundation is to perpetuate and develop traditions in the fields of culture and ballet. Maris Liepa was an outstanding teacher who trained a great many dancers. One of the Foundation’s goals is to support young ballet dancers and ballet school pupils, give them the opportunity of performing in public and involve them in serious work in new productions. Since the Foundation was set up, Maris Liepa Scholarships have been awarded in Moscow to: Kseniya Abbazova, Maxim Afanasyev, Nelli Kobakhidze, Anton Kuznetsov, Anastasiya Meskova, Viktoria Osipova, Appolinary Proskurin, Anastasiya Stashkevich, Olga Stebletsova, Mikhail Shelamov with the personal generous support from Viktor Huako; - and in Riga to: Artur Rozenbakh, Elza Leymane, Raymonds Martinovs, Natalya Korotya, Mariya Shevchenko, Anna Yankovska, Anna Novikova Agnes Germa Ketiya Busa, with generous support from Nina Kondrateva. Some of the scholarship-winners have already completed their training at ballet school and joined the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia and Latvian National Opera. For Maris Liepa scholarship-winner Yekaterina Borchenko, soloist with the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre, the Foundation organized a first performance – in Giselle (Chelyabinsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet) and it presented her at the Vaganova Competition where she was a prize-winner. Two of the Foundation’s scholarship-winners from the Nikolai Ogryzkov School of Contemporary Dance have now graduated from the School and, in the very same year, continued their training in France and in Holland.
 

For many years Maris Liepa researched and collected materials on the Russian Seasons in Paris and he became enthused by the idea of reviving masterpieces of Russian ballet which were presented at the beginning of the century and had a hug influence on the development of culture all over the world. He was the first to return to Russia a Fokine ballet which had never been performed there: this was Le Spectre de la rose which he revived in 1966, and danced at the premiere performance during a Bolshoi Ballet tour to Cuba and then at the Bolshoi Theatre. Andris has inherited his father’s love of reconstructing old ballets. In 1989, while working with ABT of which Misha Baryshnikov was at the time artistic director, he made the acquaintance of Mikhail Fokine’s grand-daughter, Isabelle Fokine and in 1992, having begun work on the reconstruction of three ballet masterpieces – Petrushka, The Firebird, Scheherazade, he invited Isabelle to Moscow. The project was named The Return of the Firebird for it was Fokine’s dream to return at some point to Russia, even if only via his ballets. In 1993, its original name - the Maryinsky - was returned to the Kirov Theatre and The Firebird made a symbolic return to Mikhail Fokine’s beloved home theatre.
 

One of the main aims of the Foundation is to make known to the public lost or forgotten ballet masterpieces.
 

The Foundation is headed by Maris Liepa’s children who carry on the traditions of the Liepa ballet dynasty – People’s Artist of Russia Ilze Liepa and Merited Artist of Russia Andris Liepa. The Artistic Director is Yekaterina Liepa, and Executive Director - Yelena Ulyanova. Volunteers are engaged for each individual project.
 

At the present time, the Maris Liepa Foundation enjoys the reputation of being one of the most enterprising of cultural and arts production centers. Its activities, which are given wide coverage by the mass media, take place in Moscow as well as in other Russian cities and abroad.