A struggle of forward motion

When the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg returns to the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, its six-performance run will be the first of two Southern California engagements within a month for the Russian company: On June 23, it will give the first of four performances at the Los Angeles Music Center. Now 28 years old, the Eifman troupe started out as the St. Petersburg Ballet Theater, and its rise to international prominence coincided with a convulsive era in its homeland. Here, the company’s founder, 58, looks back on how the collapse of the Soviet system affected his fortunes and ponders what lies ahead for ballet in Russia.

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I created my theater in 1977 as an alternative to Russian classical ballet. I was motivated not by a wish to destroy the great traditions of Russian ballet but by a desire to come up with a new impulse for the development of balletic art. I was sure that Russian ballet hadn’t exhausted its potential and would be able to find new forms and ideas.

But my cultural ideals at once confronted the resistance of the authorities and their wish -- if not to destroy the company -- then to neutralize its creator-choreographer.

A campaign of persecution had begun. It intensified especially after an article appeared in the New York Times under the headline “Boris Eifman -- a Man Who Dared.” This persecution took the form of prohibiting me from leaving the USSR (at the same time that the company could tour abroad), of reducing my financing, of rigid censorship when I wanted to show my new work to audiences. (I had to present every new ballet to the Communist Party commission three or four times in an effort to get permission to perform it before the public.)

Above all, the authorities kept telling me that I was not a Soviet choreographer and that it would be better if I emigrated. This lasted for more than 10 years.

I recall these years without any nostalgia, as I had to suffer humiliation, shame and despair.

But my unceasing desire to choreograph helped me survive. I was young, of course, and I worked a lot. But a lot of time was wasted in this struggle to be a free artist in a totalitarian state.

In 1987, I began composing a ballet version of the novel “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov. Yet I worked with a sense of doom, believing I could never show this ballet to an audience because there were scenes in a mental hospital where the free will of the hero was being destroyed. I even thought that after presenting the ballet to the party commission, I might share the destiny of my hero and be sent to a psychiatric institution or deported.

But 1987 became a turning point in the ideology of the USSR, and from a ballet dissident I suddenly turned into the leading choreographer of this huge ballet country.

Those who had been bent on destroying me yesterday praised me today.

In that year, a new stage of my theater life and my creative life began.

I can declare unreservedly that I used the freedom not to change anything fundamental in my creative process. Even before perestroika, I never made a compromise with the authorities. But this new era brought with it new possibilities for the professional growth of my company, and they allowed me to implement my fantasies.

At the same time, the further disintegration of the USSR limited our tour horizons. This immediately reduced our budget, because without our own stage in St. Petersburg and sufficient government financing, my theater can exist only by touring the world raising money for creative endeavors (new productions) and for preserving its creative potential. (The salaries of the actors in our theater are three to four times higher than the salaries in state theaters, and even now the government satisfies our requirements by only 25% to 30%.)

In other words, the economic and political collapse that afflicted Russia in the first years of perestroika didn’t exactly produce the conditions for a creative life, but the new freedom did bring with it both new energy and a confidence in tomorrow.

Very soon, in fact, our theater began touring Europe, Asia and America, and the introduction of our art into the larger world of ballet had begun.

Of course, we also felt the reverse side of independence from the government. Now the struggle for the survival of our theater was not a struggle with party officials but with financial problems that could have destroyed the theater. But it was an open and frank struggle. We took on this battle and, thank God, we won a victory: We managed not only to keep the theater but made it one of the most famous and successful representatives of modern Russian ballet.

WHEN it comes to the future of dance artists in Russia, however, unfortunately the continuing emigration of the best teachers at Russian ballet schools has greatly reduced the level of professional training. These days, young ballet artists are more concerned with their financial positions than with their artistic careers, and the lack of new creative leaders in theaters dooms young artists to the boring and monotonous life of interpreters of the classical heritage, depriving them of a true creative life. Hence the cynicism and mercantilism in contemporary Russian ballet.

At the same time, the lack of an official policy toward ballet has contributed to the diminished artistry and popularity of this once-privileged Russian art.

Still, I look to the future with optimism, because the passion for ballet in Russia is unquenchable. That means there will inevitably be new possibilities for its professional development and successful existence.

For my part, I am working toward the realization of a dream: creation in St. Petersburg of a unique educational-theatrical center, a “Palace of Dance” where three companies will represent three ages of Russian ballet. There will be a company of Marius Petipa -- classical ballet of the 19th century; a Boris Eifman ballet; and an experimental company aimed at finding new forms and ideas for Russian ballet in the 21st century. On the foundation of this company will be built a studio for young choreographers and also an academy of modern ballet, where in the closed regime of a boarding school, children will be taught this new system.

My goal is to nourish two things without which ballet in Russia cannot flourish: not only professional dance artists but creative personalities.

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Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Price: $25 to $75

Contact: (714) 556-2787 or www.ocpac.org

Also

Where: Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 7:30 p.m. June 23; 8 p.m. June 24 and 25; 2 p.m. June 26

Price: $20 to $75

Contact: (213) 365-3500 or (714) 740-7878