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As I noted in the comments section of another video, I have noticed more and more Vaganova Ballet Academy teachers today choose to teach the Italian technique for fouettés as shown in the first part of this video. What I'm not sure of is why. As long as Dudinskaya was artistic director of the Academy, the technique favoured by Vaganova could still be seen in her classes as well as on stage at the Kirov Ballet: Suki Schorer of the School of American Ballet mentions a well turned-out supporting leg as a visually appealing advantage to the Italian method, but I also wonder if the additional preparatory step (plié in croisé or quatrième devant before the grand rond de jambe, as opposed to the abrupt, more forceful whipping of the Russian technique) has other advantages from the physical/mechanical standpoint, like increasing the number of revolutions a dancer can accomplish. You can see more demonstrations of the Russian technique for fouettés, rarely seen today outside of St. Petersburg, in the links below: 1. Tamara Toumanova: 2. Ninel Kurgapkina: 3. Natalia Makarova: 4. Margarita Kulik: 5. Lyubov Kunakova: 6. Altynay Asylmuratova: 7. Yulia Makhalina: 8. Svetlana Zakharova: 9. Elena Yevseyeva:
