It was a student scholarship of the Indian Government that brought a young Galina Lyakhova from Russia to New Delhi to pursue Kathak. Trained in Classical Ballet, and having learnt Kathak in Moscow from Shakti Roberts, Galina, now serving her last days as the head of the School of Russian Classical Ballet at the city’s Russian Centre of Science and Culture — a place she is often credited for giving a much needed fillip and thereby attracting a large number of students for over a decade, says she didn’t know then that her short India sojourn would lead to meeting her first true love, her Indian husband, and that she would stay back in the country.
“I came to India on an Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) scholarship as a young ballet dancer in 1993. I learnt Kathak from Nandini Singh. It was not to leave Classical Ballet and become a Kathak dancer but to widen my understanding of yet another classical dance form. I feel, to become a complete dancer, you need to understand other forms too,” says Gallina. Those days, since there was no space for her to practice ballet, the then deputy director of the Russian Centre allowed her and some other Russian students to practice their art within the premises. “By 1994, I began teaching ballet to some kids of the Embassy officials,” she recalls her early days as a ballet teacher in Delhi.
Though Centre started the ballet school in 1982, she says it had been facing the problem of lack of trained teachers for some years. “From 1989 till I joined it in 2000, the school had no teacher. In fact, it began not as a school but as a small ballet studio with about 10-15 students,” she says. When the Centre asked her to join it, she quickly agreed.
“Ballet is oxygen for me and I love teaching it. Even today I can go on practising for hours together to get the desired result in students. So I readily agreed. The then administration rightly considered that such a school is very important for promotion of Russian art in the Indian Capital,” says Galina.
Unlike today, ballet was not as popular in Delhi ten years ago. “I have worked really hard to popularise Classical Ballet in Delhi. From teaching students how to wear a leotard and dance, to bringing books and videos to show them how it is done in Russia, to choreographing my pieces, selecting the music, broadly designing the costumes, to bringing experts to take exams and grade them, I have done everything over the years. Even recently, I introduced lessons in dramatic skills to improve the expressions of the dancers. From nothing, the annual show of the School is now sometimes seen by more than a thousand people,” says Gallina, mentioning that she has been chosen for the 2014 badge of honour by the Russian Government for popularising its culture outside the country.
With her exit from the Centre imminent now, Galina says she will, however, continue to propagate Classical Ballet in Delhi. “I may have to find a place to continue teaching my students. I have taught so many students in the last 15 years, some of them have taken it up as a profession, so the legacy should continue.”