Light Feet, Light Purses : Russian Economy Takes Toll on Moiseyev Folk Dance Company, Whose O.C. Debut Is Tonight

Igor Moiseyev is founder of one of the world’s most famous folk dance troupes. After nearly six decades, he continues to create works as the sole choreographer of the Russian ensemble that bears his name.

After eight U.S. tours, many Americans think Moiseyev when they think folk dance.

But today, because of Russia’s dire economic straits, Igor Moiseyev wonders whether his company will survive. Hard currency earned on overseas tours has helped, but galloping inflation has drastically slashed salaries paid at home.

Moiseyev himself, one of the leading figures of 20th-Century dance, receives $300 a month from the company. He has had to spend his savings to make ends meet.

“I would want very much for the ensemble to continue,” Moiseyev, 89, says, “but I don’t know exactly what the future holds. We are in a very difficult time.”

Still, the indefatigable Moiseyev maintains steadfast hope for the troupe’s future.

“Hope dies last,” he says. He adds nothing, offers no explanation.

The choreographer discussed his company’s economic woes and its future, his new works, the creative process and his retirement plans--he has none--before his troupe’s first Orange County performances, tonight and through Wednesday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Those who have followed the company will recognize the staples.

There’s the Ukrainian “Gopak,” in which a man leaps over a line of women; the frenzied Romanian “Gypsies,” and the heel-stomping Argentine “Gaucho” cowboys (Moiseyev doesn’t confined himself to Soviet folklore).

Fans will remember as well the flying barrel turns, the kaleidoscopic group patterns, the youthful, smiling (no matter what) faces, the dazzling bravura and the balletic elegance, born of training that’s rooted at the ballet barre.

New to U.S. audiences are the comical, acrobatic “Finnish Polka” (1993) and “Jewish Suite” (1994), which re-creates a Jewish engagement party. The latter is based on a village-wide celebration Moiseyev happened upon when he was 9.

Moiseyev traveled throughout his country as a youth, soaking up the song and dance of some 180 cultures of the former Soviet Union. He founded his troupe in 1937 after a stint with the Bolshoi Ballet as a principal dancer and choreographer. The company made its historic U.S. debut in 1958 under a cultural exchange agreement.

Financially, as otherwise, times have changed radically since then, of course. The Russian government has slashed fat Soviet-era subsidies to many dance companies. Moiseyev could not say by how much his subsidy has been reduced (“I’m not the financial director”). But, through an interpreter, he said the inflation rate has been even more devastating.

“We are still very loved in our country, one of the most loved ensembles,” he said, relaxing on his hotel room couch. “The government knows that, and we are second only to the Bolshoi in terms of the subsidy we get. . . . But regardless of the amount, inflation is eating it up. For example--this is just a figure I’m taking out of the sky--if the government gives us $10 million today, tomorrow, the value of it [decreases by] 20%. In a week, half of it is gone.”

Desperate financial times have not led to desperate measures, however, like those alleged recently against the general director and chief choreographer of the Kirov Ballet. In October, both men spent three days in jail in St. Petersburg while being questioned by police about a scheme in which a Canadian impresario is alleged to have paid millions of dollars in bribes to Kirov officials in exchange for granting rights to organize the troupe’s foreign tours. The men were released, however, and prosecutors announced that there was insufficient evidence to bring formal charges.

As to reports of bribery and skimming at other Russian dance companies, Moiseyev smiled and said: “We don’t operate that way. I have never given anyone a bribe and I’ve never asked for one. I think that ultimately who gets to go abroad and under what circumstances is based on the quality of the group.”

This financial picture has, he said, forced the troupe, like others, to spend more time on foreign tours, which garner hard currency and are otherwise more lucrative. On the road, dancers get $60 per day on top of their regular salaries. Still, those salaries are puny.

“I, who should be making more than anybody else, receive from the ensemble $300 a month,” Moiseyev said, adding without bitterness or self-pity: “Whatever savings and whatever wealth I had in the past I’ve had to use during this difficult time.” Increased touring increases fatigue, which is compounded by the strain of doing more with less. The number of artists the company can afford to take on tour also has plummeted. Ten years ago, it brought a contingent of 155 plus an orchestra. This time, only two musicians and roughly half as many dancers are aboard.

“Each dancer is doing several numbers,” Moiseyev said, “and some of them have very quick costume changes and barely have enough time to do so for the next dance.”

Economics have meant fewer new ballets, as well. “Where we might have had five or six new numbers in one year, that has been cut in half,” Moiseyev said.

Still, he has hope. And, he has his work. Moiseyev has smiling eyes and laughs often. But his spirit seems to ignite when he talks about his art.

Demonstrating the essence of his “Finnish Polka,” he suddenly sat ramrod straight, jerked his feet mechanically back and forth and stared directly ahead like an automaton. “The Finnish people dance,” he said, “with completely straight faces, not really looking at one another. I took the fact that they are able to be blank when they are dancing--no matter how complex the steps--one step further, to the point of absurdity.

“It’s a boy and a girl dancing and he picks her up and puts her on his head, but it doesn’t even appear that he is straining himself,” he said. “It’s as if he’s just putting a hat on his head. It’s very funny.

“I consider myself extremely fortunate in life,” Moiseyev said, “because a terrible tragedy would be to live life not doing what you love to do. Every new creative endeavor, every new piece I put together brings me pleasure, satisfaction beyond anything that money could possibly buy.”

Moiseyev’s forte has always been the ability to distill the essence of a folk culture and transform it into spectacular theater. He has never been a practitioner of choreographic photo-realism and never will be, he said.

He made an analogy to Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin, who used as raw material the folk stories he learned as a boy from a nanny who told them as “they would be told by any grandmother in any village.”

“If Pushkin were simply a folklorist, he would have taken what she had told him and wrote it down verbatim and would have been known as someone who documented folkloric stories. Instead, Pushkin took the material and transformed it into high literary pieces, into beautiful poems for which he is famous to this day.”

In January, Moiseyev plans to celebrate his 90th birthday with a big bash at the Bolshoi Theatre in his honor. He has no plans to retire, however. “I don’t think about that much at all,” he said. “It’s better to die at the helm.”

Asked if he has designated a successor to lead the company, he said: “I’m almost getting there.” But he has not been grooming anyone to take his place as choreographer.

“I am convinced that someone who is destined to create does not have to be prepared by anyone to do so,” he said, “and the ones that you prepare are usually the ones that can’t create. Creativity is a process where someone is not taking, is not necessarily learning, but is giving something new. It’s a kind of light that must shine on its own.”

This light will assuredly cast new colors on the stage, Moiseyev said.

“Of course the ensemble will evolve and grow with this new input,” he said. “They will be creating things differently, they will be performing them perhaps differently. This will be an entirely new era. It will not be the same as it was.”

* The Moiseyev Folk Dance Company opens tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. Through Wednesday . $18-$49. (714) 556-2787.