The Words of the Vinogradov Family
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The Words of the Vinogradov Family |
Oleg Vinogradov
WASHINGTON -- The Universal Ballet Academy, the first major manifestation on the American arts scene of Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon, opens Wednesday in the nation's capital with a big splash.
Moon, who has begun to use culture as a calling card for his business and religious expansion, has hired Oleg Vinogradov to head the school. For the last 13 years, Vinogradov has been director of the Soviet Union's fabled Kirov Ballet, the alma mater of Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Several years in the planning, the Universal Ballet Academy is the next step in Moon's ambition "to connect to heaven through beauty and art," according to Dindy Yokel, public relations counsel for the school. The controversial religious leader and Vinogradov previously struck a pact to have the Kirov tour South Korea in 1991 as guests of Moon's Universal Ballet Company in Seoul. Last December, Moon's daughter-in-law Julia Moon, the 25-year-old daughter of his South Korean aide-de-camp Bo Hi Pak, danced "Giselle" on the Kirov stage.
On the eve of the official opening of the reported $5.9 million academy in the northeast part of the city, one-third of the full-time student spots remain unfilled, Yokel said. The academy can house 63 boarding students in its dorms, with an additional 100 in daytime classes.
While no attempt is made to cover the academy's connection to the church, school officials deny having any religious ties. "The Universal Ballet Foundation sponsors the Universal Ballet Academy through its contributions received from U.S. tax-paying corporations affiliated with the worldwide Unification Church," according to the academy's press booklet.
Vinogradov said through a translator that what he wants "ultimately, is a company. And I regard the school as the foundation for that company. I will at first make small ballets on the students and present them to the public. Little by little we will make our reputation."
While in Washington, he will be supervising the development of 14- to 18-year-olds from disparate backgrounds and skill levels.
"UBA will be my home," he said, "and the four months a year I promised constitute the minimum amount of time I will spend here." With him is his hand-picked staff of Soviet assistants, including assistant director Oleg Briansky; his wife, Mireille Briane; and some of the academy's faculty (Yelena Vinogradova, Nicholai Morozov, Ludmilla Morkovina and Azari Plissetskiall).
Vinogradov said he does not plan to leave the Kirov yet.
"We now make many tours to the West, every year, earning $45,000 to $50,000 per performance of which the theater takes 60%." Before perestroika, the company was wholly subsidized and did not need to concern itself with box-office receipts.
"Things are very different now in Russia, principally because we make our own determinations within the Kirov and have fewer outside authorities to contend with," Vinogradov said.
Vinogradov said his association with the Moon academy offers several advantages: "Coming here is good for my career. Both in the present and the future. But least of all do I gain financially. We (Soviets) are different from you (capitalists) in that way.
"What I gain from my association with (the academy) is the chance to implement things that are impossible at the Kirov."
He could not say what those might be. "I have not thought deeply on the subject. But the public will see for itself. When I joined the Kirov, people asked me the same question and I refused to comment."
Wednesday's festivities in Washington include a demonstration by Bolshoi-Kirov star Andris Liepa. Tamara Geva, Balanchine's first wife, will be guest of honor and a pictorial exhibition titled "100 Years of Russian Ballet," which toured New York last year, will also be featured.
Also in the lineup will be a dozen young Kirov dancers, "most of them 17 and under," said Vinogradov, "the same age as the academy students."
In recent weeks, the capital has seen an advertising blitz of TV, radio and newspapers announcing the academy and its gala and inviting students to audition.
According to Universal Ballet Academy publicist Yokel, "No one is being proselytized." She said that the quest for respect through the arts best describes Moon's motive. "God knows, spending all this money on 160 students would be an inefficient way to get new followers."
Not a church member herself, she acknowledged that the other non-Soviet administrators of the Universal Ballet Foundation and Academy are.
"Part of the problem is this cloak-and-dagger routine that (the administrators) put me through. I'm trying to do a job, but they're so afraid of being scrutinized that everything must go through their screening process first. Meanwhile, we have to clean up this image of the church -- get it boxed and put away. It doesn't belong here because the ballet academy is totally nonsectarian."