A nice article about Keenan Kampa in the St. Petersburg Times -- "American Dancer Soars At Mariinsky"
"Out of the 11 female Russian dancers who were part of her class, Kampa said, only four remained by the end of the two years, along with a few other foreign students….
"While it all took some getting used to — for both Kampa and the Russian instructors and students at the academy — eventually she found her voice, and a deep connection to her associates.
" “I never thought I would say that,” said Kampa, “But I had fallen in love with Russia…."
"After two years with the Boston Ballet [after her Vaganova graduation], Kampa received the unexpected offer to come dance for the Mariinsky Ballet, making her the first American to join the ranks of a dance troupe that is universally regarded as one of the best in the world.
" "You can’t work more than six hours each day [in US, labor rules]….Here the dancers will work until midnight, just because they love their art so much. They love it. They respect it so much that they want perfection.” "
http://www.sptimes.ru/story/37905?page=nopages#top(Thanks to BalletcoForum for posting this although I'm sure that Francis would have found it quite quickly as well)
Added:
And a story about another young woman from the US who graduated from the school at -- 'The Other Place'.
"After years of training in cities from Detroit to Washington, D.C., and later in Russia, Maria Theresa Beck has become only the second U.S. woman to graduate from the world’s most famous ballet school, the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow." ["the world’s most famous ballet school"....Catherine?]
She will now dance at Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theatre.
http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/arti ... let-troupe(thanks to Ballet Alert! for posting this)