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The Deborah Mason School of Dance, and its not-for-profit arm, the Cambridge Youth Dance Program, sets its syllabus on the Legat system. Nina Pillar has been affiliated with the school for more than 20 years. The Legat system has been the core of the school’s syllabus since the 1980s, and all students of CYDP are required to learn ballet through the
Legat curriculum.
Nicolai Gustovavich Legat was a premier danseur with the Russian Imperial Ballet from 1888 to 1914 and was the main successor to the roles of the great ballet dancer, Pavel Gerdt. Legat later held duties of a ballet master in Russia, teaching and passing on the legacy of the repertoire of that company, namely the work of the prolific choreographer and renowned ballet master, Marius Petipa. Legat taught some of the greatest dancers of their time, which include Legat’s longtime partner Ana Pavlova, Nijinsky, and Michel Fokine. Legat later exiled to London, where he continued to teach early 20th century artists such as Margot Fonteyn and Moira Shearer. His methodology attracted exceptional dancers and pedagogues and it developed into a training system of great renown in Europe.
The Legat Training System is a distinctive style of training which aims to promote free-flowing movement instead of rigid automation. The system comes into play once the basic technical requirements have been attained. Instead of practicing repetitive and dull exercises, a variety of steps are put together in varied combinations to keep the brain stimulated and the body supple. The result is a versatile, animated dance and efficient control of the body. This method was studied by many professional dancers in the 20th century in Europe. It radically changed the way in which many undertook training, and helped usher in the age of Russian dominance in ballet training and technique.
legat technique
Ana Roje was a Croatian dancer and teacher of note. A soloist in Belgrade 1930, Roje came to London in 1933 as a ballerina. She began to study with Legat and soon discovered that she, like many others, was reborn as a dancer under Legat’s tutelage. She became his assistant and protégé. After opening a school in Split, she traveled to NY where she became Ballet Mistress of the Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo. Roje came to Boston and began to teach classes in the Legat tradition in the 1960s.
One student of Roje’s in Boston was Nina Pillar, prima ballerina with the Boston Ballet. The method challenged everything she knew about dance. She was so taken with the methodology that she decided to refrain from her professional career in orderto undergo coaching and training to carry on teaching in the Legat system. As Ana Roje’s assistant and Board member of the American Society for Russian Style Ballet, Pillar was chosen as Roje’s protégé. Nina trained with Roje and has been teaching Legat in its purest form for nearly 40 years.
32 Cottage Park Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
617.497.1448
Legat Ballet Technique (read more) • Pointe • Theater Dance • Tap • Modern • Hip Hop • Repertory
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