The Classic Method: Making the Russian Ballet School Visible
Updated: 6 days ago
A new digital library founded by NOVAT principal dancer Artem Pugachev turns the grammar of classical dance into a precise visual archive — one movement, one video, one carefully preserved detail at a time.
There are forms of knowledge that do not live comfortably on paper. Ballet is one of them. A line in a method book may describe the direction of the leg, the work of the supporting side, the placing of the head; but the real meaning appears only when the body begins to move. The Classic Method, a new educational platform founded by Artem Pugachev, principal dancer of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, starts exactly from this fragile point: the moment when written tradition needs a living body in order to be truly understood.
The project presents itself as a video library of the Russian classical ballet method.
Its guiding principle is deceptively simple: one movement, one video.
Each lesson focuses on a single element of classical dance, tracing its origin, mechanics, correct execution and typical mistakes. Graphic schemes clarify axes, support, weight distribution and the geometry of movement, while demonstrations in slow and working tempo allow students to return to the same detail again and again.
The first available section of the library is devoted to the method of Agrippina Vaganova, including work at the barre and in the centre. Alongside the methodical archive, the platform offers physical preparation courses: foot and instep work, core and back strength, stretching, turnout and exercises preparing the body for arabesque. There are also authorial master classes by ballet artists, complete with combinations, explanations and musical accompaniment.
What makes The Classic Method especially interesting is its editorial, almost archival ambition. It does not treat ballet technique as a set of tricks or isolated exercises. Instead, it places movement inside a chain of transmission: from methodical sources to the teacher’s eye, from the teacher’s eye to the dancer’s body, and from the dancer’s body to a student who may be watching from another country, another studio, another cultural context.
Pugachev’s own biography gives this idea its practical ground. A graduate of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, a laureate of international ballet competitions and now a principal dancer at NOVAT, he developed the project after teaching master classes in Russia, Japan and Thailand. Working abroad, he saw both the lasting attraction of the Russian ballet school and the need for a more detailed explanation of its academic principles. The platform was created for those who cannot always be physically present in the same studio with Russian teachers, but still want access to the logic and discipline of the tradition.
The international dimension is built into the project from the beginning. The lessons are voiced in Russian, with English and Japanese subtitles for a wider audience. Japan has a special place in the story of TCM: Spasibo.project supported the idea and helped introduce it directly to Japanese students and ballet lovers.
Today it is the project’s main partner, while TCM’s social media are developed in English and Japanese.
Fourteen artists have taken part in the filming of the methods, courses and master classes. Among them are Artem Pugachev, Honoured Artist of Russia Olga Grishenkova, Viktoria Dankovtseva, Maria Mashkina, Nikolai Maltsev and Evgeny Basalyuk. Their stage experience gives the archive its most important quality: academic principles are not explained abstractly, but shown through professional bodies shaped by performance, rehearsal and daily work.
For teachers, The Classic Method can become a tool for preparing classes and refining technical details. For students and professional dancers, it offers a way to study consistently, to slow down the eye, to notice what is often missed in the speed of a regular class. For ballet lovers, it opens a door into the hidden architecture of classical dance — the craft beneath the illusion.
The project is still growing. Future plans include new sections of technique, methods of other masters of the Russian school, further authorial master classes, video interviews with artists, rehearsal recordings, podcasts and performances. Its slogan, "Russian Ballet Traditions as they are" sounds less like a marketing phrase than a statement of responsibility: to preserve knowledge without flattening it, and to make it visible without simplifying what makes it difficult, beautiful and alive.
Website: https://theclassicmethod.art/en/
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