A Ballet Paradox

Victor Gsovsky’s sophisticated and captivating duet, Grand Pas Classique, aims to capture the range of outstanding dancers in formal and challenging ways. It begins with a proud entry, promenades before moving into a long duet of high lifts, flashing turns and jumps. The ballerina exits and the danseur performs a dashing solo before she returns to perform her own solo. Finally, the pair reunite to dance the coda together. Simple? Not for a minute! 

Rarely performed in Australia, Grand Pas Classique is a model pas de deux for choreographers and a challenging undertaking for dancers, setting the standard for quality dancing far beyond its 19th-century roots. As a stand-alone work, it’s perfect for a triple bill or gala performance for all ages to relish, provided it does not become overblown. Separated from the large ensembles and endless variations that comprise narrative works, Grand Pas Classique gives artists the opportunity to express themselves in an entirely different way.

Russian Roots

As balletomanes will attest, ballet’s traditions are firmly grounded in Russia and the ‘father of ballet’, Marius Petipa’s more than 60 works that defined ballet’s beginnings. The early solos, duets and ensembles of European ballet remain the underpinnings of the art form.

Fourteen years after Petipa’s death, an equally brilliant dancer, teacher and choreographer, Victor Gsovsky, emerged. Aged just 23, Gsovsky and his wife Tatjana abandoned the turmoil of Bolshevik Russia to live and work in Berlin. The pair expanded their careers widely in Europe until they were forced to flee during the Second World War.

In a post-WWII Paris, Gsovsky was appointed as ballet master at the Paris Opera Ballet. Creating new pieces for companies across Europe, Gsovsky began creating a new pas de deux to premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Taking inspiration from Petipa’s ballet Paquita, he used the structured choreography to form the basis of Grand Pas Classique, blending it with Daniel-François Auber’s opera Le Diable à quatre. Working with his former student Yvette Chauviré, partnered by Vladimir Skouratoff, the heightened score elevated the emotional expression of the movement.

Grand Pas Classique premiered in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées on 12 November, 1949. Danced by Chauviré and Skouratoff, the performance was a great success, wildly applauded in Europe and further abroad.

Since its premiere over 70 years ago, Grand Pas Classique has become a beloved piece, reaching new audiences as a string of elite choreographers have made it their own, interpreting Gsovsky’s choreography and advancing the work to new heights. 

Local Connection

Closer to home, the first known Australian production of a ballet in the Gsovsky genre was Grand Pas Classique (Pas de Six), created by Paris-born dancer, choreographer and founding director of the Queensland Ballet, Charles Lisner, in 1968.

Lisner trained with Edouard Borovansky and danced with the Borovansky Ballet before relocating to London and graduating from the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School under the direction of Dame Ninette de Valois. Influenced enormously by Sir Frederick Ashton and the Ballet Russes teachings, Lisner worked closely with Leonide Massine and Sir Robert Helpmann on the film The Red Shoes and danced with The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, until a severe illness in 1952 forced him to return to his family in Melbourne. The following year he left for Brisbane to establish a studio, Lisner Ballet Academy. In 1960, he established the Lisner Ballet Company, renamed Queensland Ballet in 1962, of which he was the artistic director until 1974.

After a three-year lull, in 1967, Lisner employed five new dancers to perform a programme he developed with Mary Heath, the company’s longest-serving principal ballerina and devoted ally.  They were Jenny Tate and Frederic Jahn (Werner)  from New Zealand, Madonna Maybry from America, Ron Dechamp from Western Australia and Garry Kidd from Queensland. The programme order was Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Valse Excentrique, Michel Fokine’s Les Sylphides, Lisner’s Grand Pas Classique (Pas de Six), and Sir Frederick Ashton’s Façade.

The 1967 opening night was a thrilling affair, and the company couldn’t wait for the premiere of this brand-new Grand Pas to start. After months of anticipation, we were finally able to see it on the big stage. 

After the interval, music by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, Ludwig Minkus and Riccardo Drigo began, and soon we were gripped in the wings by this stunning Grand Pas. The outcome was a triumph, and great fun when the audience started cheering. Dancing Façade straight after Grand Pas Classique (Grand Pas de Six) was something of a panic, and exhausting, but we knew that this night was rewarding for us all.

 The entire process from rehearsal to production was infused with these playful, romantic and classy moments of ballet. It was all brought together by the dedication of the dancers and students, some of whom travelled from Sydney, making and painting costumes by hand and buying their own shoes, tights and makeup. As we panicked to get everything right and made our final adjustments, the atmosphere backstage and in the studio became one of cosy familiarity, our final rehearsals flying by far too fast and our ballet family ready for the reveal of Lisner’s Grand Pas Classique.