The Apogee Foundation Awards Prizes and Grants to World Class Performing Artists in Russia
Apogee has awarded four of its most prestigious Premier Awards to artists, instructors and directors in the former Soviet Union as part of its ongoing mission of promoting excellence in the performing arts.
New York (PRWEB) June 7, 2005 -- The Apogee Foundation has awarded four
Premier Awards to outstanding performing arts professionals in Russia. The
Foundation’s Premier Awards program is designed to foster the development of
human excellence in the performing arts by recognizing and supporting the
accomplishments of artists achieving world class distinction in their field. The
granting of these rigorously judged, merit-based awards demonstrates the
Foundation’s steadfast commitment to the great artistic traditions of Eastern
Europe which are carried on and represented by their recipients. For detailed
information regarding Apogee’s Premier Awards program, please refer to the
Foundation’s website:
http://www.apogeefoundation.org/awards/premier.php
These
four Premier Awards, administered by Apogee’s Central CIS Bureau, include two
Rising Star and two Achievement Awards. Apogee's Rising Star Award is available
to performing artists demonstrating extraordinary ability and artistic
distinction early in their professional careers, whereas Achievement Awards are
available to preeminent instructors and directors who have consistently realized
the potential of world class performing artists over the course of their
lifework.
The two Rising Star Awards went to Boris Myasnikov and
Alexander Shpak. Based on his selection as the top former Apogee beneficiary
from the Perm State Ballet School, Myasnikov received a special edition of the
Rising Star Award marking completion of the fifth annual cycle of Apogee awards
made available to students and faculty there. The jury selected Myasnikov based
on his consistent recognition by the Foundation and the School as a person of
extraordinary ability, having received not only the Foundation's first
Excellence Award provided at the School during the 1999/2000 academic year but
also its first Rising Star Award to a Perm graduate in 2004, when he was
designated by the Perm State faculty as the School’s top 2004 graduate. Also
considered in this choice was Myasnikov's record of achievement in winning major
competitions in Russia and abroad, as well as his ongoing success in performance
with the Stanislavsky Ballet in Moscow and around the world. Shpak was selected
for the Rising Star Award on the basis of his designation by the Perm faculty as
the School's top 2005 graduate as well as his record of achievement in winning
multiple major national and international competitions during the preceding
year.
Simultaneously with these prizes to Myasnikov and Shpak, the
Foundation also bestowed a special edition of its Achievement Award upon their
instructor: Yuri Sidorov. This award, entitled the Yoel Plakht Honorarium for
Excellence in Teaching, is named in honour of one of Russia’s truly legendary
dance instructors, Yoel Plakht, who taught for over 20 years at the Perm School
and served as its Artistic Director for nearly a decade. Sidorov, one of
Plakht’s many students who have gone on to themselves become leading instructors
around the world, was nominated for this award by the faculty of the School and
ratified by Apogee’s expert jury in recognition of his success in carrying on
Plakht’s legacy as the preeminent male instructor in central Russia, evidenced
by his students' consistent record of achievements.
In addition to the
awards provided to Sidorov and his former students, Apogee announced its
selection of Evgeny Subbotin to receive the Foundation's Sergei Diaghilev Award
for Outstanding Service to the Performing Arts. Subbotin is President of the
Arabesque Society and Founder of the prestigious Perm International Ballet
Competition, which under his leadership have become the most important
organizations and events of their kind in the central and eastern regions of the
former Soviet Union. In recognition of the important work of these
organizations, Apogee also announced that it will provide institutional grants
to enable both institutions to enhance their programs through acquisition of
advanced computer and photographic equipment.
Apogee's Diaghilev Award is
named in honour of Russia’s supreme performing arts impresario: Sergei
Diaghilev, who spent his formative years in Perm. Diaghilev transformed the
history of the performing arts through his introduction of dancers such as
Pavlova and Nijinsky to the world together with ground breaking choreographers
such as Fokine and Nijinsky and composers such as Stravinsky. Apogee’s jury of
specialists determined that Subbotin’s work in the course of his career best
exemplified Diaghilev’s historic legacy as well as the Foundation’s ongoing
mission of achieving the potential of human excellence in the performing
arts.
Commenting on these awards, Apogee President Kenneth Schneider
issued the following statement: “We are privileged on behalf of the global
community to recognize and honor such superlatively accomplished individuals and
their ongoing contributions to the performing arts. Each of these distinguished
professionals evidences the continuingly awesome potential of traditions which
in many ways are unmatched in the history of the world. In doing so, they are
realizing the apogee of human excellence which our Foundation seeks to foster.”
Information regarding Apogee’s mission and work in the former Soviet
Union and around the world can be found on the Foundation’s website:
http://www.apogeefoundation.org/
as can further
information about the Perm State Ballet School, the top training institution of
its kind in the central and eastern FSU:
http://www.apogeefoundation.org/programs/existing.php
About
the Apogee Foundation:
The Apogee Foundation began activities in Russia in
1997 and was incorporated in the United States in 2004 as a New York based
not-for-profit corporation. Apogee is dedicated to the development of human
excellence in the performing arts. It supports cultural institutions and
individual artists, providing administrative, promotional, and financial support
to help talented individuals achieve their full potential, and enabling this
potential to be showcased to the world.
Contact:
The Apogee
Foundation
Kenneth Schneider, President
1001 Avenue of the Americas, 12th
Floor
New York, NY 10018-5411 (USA)
+1.646.722.0247 or
+1.888.APOGEE.8
Fax: +1.646.292.5101
www.ApogeeFoundation.org
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb248039.htm