Sofia Golovkina, 88; Directed Bolshoi Ballet Academy

Sofia Golovkina, 88, former ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet who directed the company’s academy, the Moscow Ballet School, for four decades, died Feb. 17 in Moscow of unspecified causes.

Golovkina took her pupils on tour to the United States in 1979 and 1989. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, she directed a summer school, the Bolshoi Academy at Vail, at the Vail International Dance Festival in Colorado for several years.

A strong and aggressive teacher and administrator, Golovkina danced from 1933 through 1959 and headed the Moscow school from 1960 to 2001. Her roles included classics such as Aurora in “Sleeping Beauty” and Odette in “Swan Lake,” as well as Soviet-influenced ballets illustrating Josef Stalin’s “socialist realism.”

Golovkina danced the key role in “Bright Stream,” which was denounced by the Communist Party newspaper Pravda in 1936 as “false ballet.” The ballet was removed from the Bolshoi’s repertoire.