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GRAND PRIX PROGRAM

Areas: Culture and Arts; Science and Education
The program operates since 2015
Recipient of charitable aid: Kyiv State Ballet School
The main project of the program is the contest-festival "Grand Prix Kiev 2017". Read the booklet

Kyiv State Ballet School has a really long history. Starting from 1934, the ballet studio had been preparing ballet performers for the Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theatre. From 1 July 1949, after multiple reorganizations, Kyiv State Ballet School started operating as an independent secondary specialised educational institution for training classical ballet dancers, based on the state ownership. In autumn of 1949, 50 first-year students were enrolled at the ballet school. In 1966, a boarding house was opened in the school’s grounds to make ballet studies attractive also for youth from other Ukrainian cities.

Today, the ballet school has 194 students, with 119 out of them being secondary education students (grades 5-9) and 75 being higher education students (years 1-3). Upon completion of their studies, the ballet school’s graduates receive the associate’s degree in Choreography, being qualified as a ballet performer and a teacher for specialised primary art schools, and concurrently complete their secondary education.

The school’s students take part in ballet performances of the National Opera of Ukraine, the Kyiv State Municipal Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre for Children and Youth, and are regular participants of Ukrainian and international competitions.

Over its long history, the ballet school graduated 1,546 specialists, including, alongside Ukrainians, also citizens of Bulgaria, Brazil, Vietnam, Mongolia, Columbia, Portugal, Romania, and Japan. Among Kyiv State Ballet School’s alumni, there are winners of international and national competitions, laureates of the Shevchenko National Prize, the USSR State Prize, 3 People’s Artists of the USSR, 23 People’s Artists of Ukraine, 62 Honoured Artists of Ukraine, 7 People’s Artists and Honoured Artists of the CIS countries, 5 Honoured Workers of Culture of Ukraine.

Valentyna Kalynovska, Tetyana Tayakina, Valeriy Kovtun, Alla Havrylenko, Svitlana Kolyvanova, Raisa Khylko, Lyudmyla Smorgachova, Mykola Pryadchenko, Tetyana Borovyk, Nina Semizorova, Hanna Kushneryova, Genrikh Mayorov, Volodymyr Fedotov, Vadym Pysarev, Serhiy Bondur, Olena Filipyeva, Maksym Motkov, Denys Matvienko, Leonid Sarafanov, and many other graduates have won international recognition and acclaim.

The teaching staff consists of 31 full-time teachers, 16 part-time teachers, and 14 accompanists. In 2012, the Artistic Director’s position of Kyiv State Ballet School was taken up by Nobuhiro Terada, People’s Artist of Ukraine, and the school’s graduate of 1993. For the long-lasting creative contribution, the ballet school’s team has been awarded with Honorary Certificates by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Kyiv State Ballet School is financed through the state budget, and the allocated funds are far from being sufficient.
Education and training of soon-to-be worldwide famous ballet dancers requires proper conditions for conducting classes. Capital repairs of the school’s premises have not been made for a really long time, in a number of classrooms and dance halls walls need to be heat-insulated and windows to be replaced because in winter time temperatures there are too low, which makes it impossible to give full-value choreography classes and may even result in students’ injuries.
For participation in concerts, Ukrainian and international competitions and festivals, students of Kyiv State Ballet School also lack appropriate financing necessary to provide for tailoring costumes, travel costs, accommodation, meals, etc.
Kyiv State Ballet School is the initiator and organiser of the Grand Prix Kyiv International Ballet Festival, this year participated by young performers from Germany, Japan, Moldova, Brazil, and Ukraine. Without contributions of benefactors and art patrons, it would be impossible to hold festivals of such high level.

Objective:

support and promote the ballet art in Ukraine;
support and encourage children interested in classical dance;
discover talented children and youth;
establish links between ballet schools in different countries;
improve educational conditions for students of Kyiv State Ballet School.

Techniques and methods:

Searching for benefactors and art patrons, fund raising to provide assistance to Kyiv State Ballet School;
Organising and holding recitals and theme-based concerts by students of Kyiv State Ballet School on the big stage, to be attended by cultural and public figures, politicians;
Organising festivals, concerts, contests, master classes;
Organising and holding annually the Grand Prix Kyiv International Ballet Festival;
Giving grants to talented youth;
Support to talented students by providing scholarship allowances;
Support for student exchange programmes with ballet schools in different countries;
Cheering up and supporting orphans, ill children, children from low-income families, families of soldiers participating in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) and persons internally displaced from the ATO Area, by inviting them to concerts and ballet performances; promoting the ballet art among young people and encouraging them to study choreography;
Information support for Kyiv State Ballet School’s activities and events.

Cooperation:

central governmental and local authorities, Kyiv State Ballet School, charitable organisations, volunteer organisations, people’s artists and honoured artists, community leaders, other celebrities.

GRAND PRIX PROGRAM

What we have done in 2020:

What we did in 2019:

What we did in 2018:

What we did in 2017:

What we did in 2016:

What we did in 2015: