Patrons dream of a Kirov West

Ballet dancers have long performed in the homes of their benefactors, and on Tuesday former Kirov principal Irina Chistyakova joined the list.

In a fund-raising event supporting the creation of the American Vaganova Ballet Conservatory (a local academy that aims to duplicate the Kirov’s famed training system in St. Petersburg), Chistyakova danced “The Dying Swan” and the Russian Dance from “Swan Lake” in the Beverly Hills home of real estate developer Richard Rand.

The planned academy is a project of Nadya and Golden Koscuik’s West Coast Classical Ballet Society, which for more than five years has been attempting to establish a professional Russian-style ballet company in the Southland. The Koscuiks say that their academy plans to develop dancers who will graduate into the company, once it exists, and join guests they will bring from Russia.

Teachers from St. Petersburg will be joining the Koscuiks later this year and early in 2003. A performance involving Chistyakova is scheduled for Dec. 20 at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse.

-- Lewis Segal