Marius Petipa, the director and leading spirit of the Petrograd ballet school, has, upon one occasion, said to the writer: ‘We employ the French, the Italian, the Danish and the Russian instructors in order to give the best of every school and style to our pupils. We teach things that no other school would teach. For instance, our pupils must know psychology, which is supposed to be unnecessary for a dancer. But I say, no. How can a girl personify the Snow Maiden when she does not know the psychology of a fairy? It’s ridiculous, you might think, as fairies are only legendary figures. But the very fact that they are imaginary makes it necessary for a girl to know how to avoid showing any human characteristics. ‘The foreign schools do not care in what steps a dancer should express such subtle emotions as jealousy, longing, bliss and sorrow. Abroad they prescribe pirouettes for joy and happiness. They prescribe acting in this, dancing in that phrase. It is not so with us. We teach the pupil to see the various human emotions in historic sculpture and painting. We show them the attitudes of various celebrated actresses in this or that emotion. Then, we go back to psychology and leave it to the artist to formulate the position that he would occupy in various emotions. So you see psychology is very important to a dancer. ‘Dancing is the cream of architecture and sculpture. We teach our future dancers to know the difference between architecture and sculpture and then between a dance and a dramatic pose, which are just as different as opera singing and concert singing. All our graduates must be accomplished dancers, actors, acrobats, architects and designers. We teach the difference between a Gothic and Byzantine line, a Moorish and Romanesque design. We have to analyze music and sculpture to their elementary parts in order to be able to show the manifold manifestations of the human soul, and the manifold forms of beauty. It is in this way that a dancer comes to know which step or gesture corresponds to the emotions of a Romanesque Italian, Gothic German or Byzantine Russian. ‘I have been assailed by our critics and composers as being too strict in demanding technique from our dancers. But tell me, please, can any talent make a man an artist without technical ability, where mathematical laws are required as in dancing and in music? Can there ever be a Rubinstein, Paderewski or Kubelik without the acquired harmonic and melodic skill on the instrument which I call technique? Just as little chance has a man of being a great dancer if he does not possess the ability to control his body, though he be the greatest choreographic genius in the world. Art is technique plus talent. No great artist in dancing was ever produced without technique.