© from the collection of Michael Hulsmann

Anatole Grigoriev taught at the Royal Ballet School (RBS) in London for twenty years and always maintained an important rule for his students: two minutes before class they had to stop their games or chatting, stand with good posture at the bar and think about the ballet class while expecting the teacher’s arrival. On entering the classroom Anatole always saw which of the boys began considering the lesson later than he should. Once Anatole arrived unexpectedly five minutes earlier, and boys were still playing football. After seeing the teacher in the corridor, they dashed like little mice to their places whispering: "The Terminator is coming, The Terminator is coming, quick! Quick!" After hearing this, Anatole looked back suspecting that Arnold Schwarzenegger might be following. But there was no one there, he was alone! So, when Anatole entered the classroom, the boys were silent. It was a hard lesson for them that day - the so-called "polishing day", one of the most exhausting lessons of the month. When class ended and the boys made their last bow, Anatole left the class but immediately returned, opened the door, looked at their tired faces and said with an icy expression: "I’ll be back... tomorrow!" Then he smiled - and the children exploded with laughter (“They went bananas”, he recalled later).

Boys were rather afraid and at the same time thought highly of him. Of large stature and magnificent build, usually suntanned, with bright blue eyes, he radiated confidence and energy. Perhaps his students could hardly imagine that outside the school gates their exacting teacher, their Terminator was just a big child, cheerful and frank, with a very natural and sincere reaction to everything. When visiting Anna Pavlova’s former house in North London together with three former ballerinas he began to imitate with them the famous old lithograph "Pas de quatre" himself depicting Maria Taglioni

Anatole Grigoriev © Natasha Dissanayake

on demi-pointe. In the company of friends, telling some amusing story, those present would be groaning with laughter. At the same time he was capable of torturing himself with his own exactness, which is the usual lot of perfectionists. One of his students, now known as choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, recalls: "Yes, we rather feared him but we always knew that he cared. We owe him so much".

Anatole (Tolya) Grigoriev was born in 1949 in the Siberian city of Kurgan. His parents had two sons and four daughters but Tolya was the most restless. Since the age of three he would venture outside the courtyard of their house into the neighboring streets. It became an amusement for him, and the local people got to know this boy and would always bring him back home. As a grown-up he liked to explain his childhood adventures by his subconsious desire to explore the bigger world: "I definitely had no desire to stay in that town forever".

As a schoolboy, Tolya attended the Young Pioneers Palace and tried to get himself interested in different clubs but could not stay for long with any of them. However, once he heard dance music coming from behind one of the doors, he poked his nose into the room, saw a dancing group practicing and knew immediately that he did not want to leave. It did not take long before Tolya’s teacher Pavel Pavlov persuaded his mum that her 10-year-old son had an aptitude for dancing and should be taken to Perm where teachers of a famous ballet school were looking for gifted children. Tolya’s mother didn’t want to part with her son and secretly hoped that he would fail the admission exams but he was accepted by the school straight away and as a result stayed in Perm to study and to live at the ballet school as a boarder. His younger sister Galina kept his school journal-book for a long time with high marks for almost all subjects.

After graduating from school at 18 Anatole was invited as a soloist to Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg) Opera & Ballet Theatre where he danced the leading roles in its entire existing repertoire, among them roles in "Spartacus" and "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai". Then Anatole moved to Leningrad and became the first soloist in the Maly (now Mussorgsky) Opera & Ballet Theatre where the role of Franz in “Coppelia” was added to his gallery of leading roles. Finally, in 1976 the big invitation arrived - to join the famous Kirov (Mariinsky) Ballet. There he danced leading roles in "Swan Lake", "Giselle", "Don Quixote", "Paquita", "La Bayadere", and "Esmeralda" and partnered such renowned ballerinas as Gabriela Komleva, Olga Chenchikova and Galina Mezentseva. Prima ballerina Lyubov Kunakova said that Tolya always "held" (i.e. partnered) magnificently. The role of Albreht was prepared by him under the guidance of Natalya Dudinskaya and Konstantin Sergeyev. While dancing at the theater Anatole also continued to study and obtained his degree as a ballet teacher.
 

Anatole Grigoriev in the studio
© from the collection of Michael Hulsmann

In 1983 Anatole immigrated to Portugal but having not found proper use for his profession there he accepted an invitation to teach at the RBS in London. Although his stage career ended quite early, the English school acquired a highly qualified teacher who had a perfect knowledge of the classical repertoire and danced it himself in the “House of Petipa”, i.e. the Mariinsky Theatre. The RBS’ Director Merl Park definitely showed courage by entrusting the boy’s classes to a new Russian who was yet unknown as a teacher and, furthermore, did not speak a word of English. Anatole of course immediately enrolled on an English Language course at a local college but his "inventions" in English phraseology continued to entertain his friends, students and chance interlocutors for quite a long time.

At the RBS he taught the boys classes and loved his work dearly. The fundamentals of Russian ballet school were sacred for him and his students knew that this teacher will not let them playing idle or work in a slipshod manner. Enthusiastic and demanding, he persistently encouraged children to attain a perfect ballet form: "Don’t dance with your body only! Everything, everything is dancing! Don’t forget your noses! Keep them up!" When in 2003 several students from a comprehensive school in East End and great fans of street dances were guests of the RBS for one day, the strongest impression was made on them by Mr. Grigoriev. One of the guests, Kamal, told a “Guardian" correspondent: "The teacher was really strict. He forced boys to do fuette 30 times and shouted: "Da! Da! Da!" With his strong hands he lifted the guest a meter above the floor to make him feel the height to which his leaps should aspire.

Among Grigoriev’s students were Robert Tewsley, Christopher Wheeldon, Edvard Watson, and Martin Harvey. When Anatole was producing classical pieces for school concerts with music by Glinka, Drigo, Pugni and Minkus, pieces which were well preserved in his memory but little-known in the West, he had to rehearse them with girls too, and these rehearsals were very beneficial for them. Once a “Dancing Times” journalist interviewed a soloist of the Royal Ballet Lauren Cuthberson and asked her a question: "Who was your inspiration in your school years?" - expecting to hear the name of some famous ballerina but Lauren answered instantly: "Mr. Grigoriev". In the last year of his life Anatole rehearsed with Lauren a pas de deux from "Don Quixote" and persuaded her to apply for a Varna competition. Many of his students like Lauren kept coming back to him for his advice and help after their graduation.
 

Anatole Grigoriev
© from the collection of Michael Hulsmann

The illness approached Anatole stealthily. He fought it for three years and for the sake of recovery accepted various types of treatment but knew that mercy could hardly be expected; therefore, he gave away his library and instructed what to do with his archive. Friends and colleagues knew about his illness and watched in amazement how after what seemed to be a hopeless condition, Anatole would bounce back to life again and again and impress everyone with his energy. In one such period, in the summer of 2005, Anatole’s ex-students and now soloists with the Royal Ballet arranged a gala concert in his honour at the school theater at White Lodge; the closing speech of their teacher, which was full of humour and was presented in his inimitable expressive style received the loudest and warmest applause of the gala.

Anatole Grigoriev passed away at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea on the 1st of March 2006 and was buried at the Kensington Cemetery in the Gunnersbury Park, West London.