Exotic, charming, strong-willed silent film diva, before she was loved by the stars of Futurism, from Balla to Depero to Prampolini. Russian-born and famous (she was born in Kerch, Crimea, the daughter of an officer in the Tsar’s army), she fled the October Revolution as a teenager via the Black Sea, Constantinople, Greece and Egypt to end up in England. She was only 18 years old and in an interview she declared with conviction: “My life is a novel… and I am so young.” Gianluca Bocchino, a young researcher and musicologist, has spent over five years studying and scrutinizing unpublished sources and materials carried out to decipher the riddle. Jia Ruskaja, “I am Russian”, founder of the National Academy of Dance, the only dance institution in Russia Italy, with the precious volume “Jia Ruskaja. The dancing goddess”, supported by the mic live show.
“The diva and glamorous icon of Italian free dance, Evgenija Fedorovna Borisenko, that’s her real name, throughout her existence has been able to establish public and private relationships with the most important personalities of national and international dance, both artistic and political culture – she said to Adnkronos Gianluca Bocchino – Although not a trained dancer, she always traveled with ease throughout most of the Futurist years to make herself the queen of dance of the Fascist era, leading to the disappointment and outrage of a section of the militant critics . added the author – not without difficulties Jia Ruskaja managed to overcome the Second World War, rewriting her and the lives of others in the aftermath of the republican years, as evidenced by the photos that show her alongside Ministers Martino, Andreotti, Moro in the gardens of the National Academy of Dance on the Aventine, the latter next to his daughters”.
Choreographer and dancer (her creations were inspired by ancient Greece and Isadora Duncan, barefoot without those annoying pointe shoes), director of the Scuola della Scala in Milan, weddings that matter. With an English army officer with whom he has a son, with the noble German sculptor Herbert von Kedermann-Wartheber, with the director of the Corriere della Sera, Aldo Borelli, with whom he will form one of the most influential and celebrated couples of all time in the first Rows in the intellectual and secular salons of Via della Spiga. But why did Jia Ruskaja choose dance to assert herself in worldly and cultural spheres? “Simply because it was the easiest language to adopt,” Bocchino replied. “She had tried cinema, but her heavy Russian accent would have prevented her from making it onto the big screen.” The body’s message was certainly the most immediate, particularly that of free dance, which was so popular at the time. She challenged herself, the dominant culture of those years, entered the “one-on-one duel” with a straight leg and won.”
Certainly, Jia Ruskaja had a special flair and knew how to surround himself with all the important personalities, especially those who held political and cultural power, but also religious power. “She was an intelligent woman, she had goals and knew how to get projects done, she didn’t like to improvise,” continued Bocchino. “She knew how to take advantage of her beauty and fill the gaps that existed in Italy, particularly in the Terpsichorian area.” . Undoubtedly, the Fascist government of the time helped and encouraged her during those years, as evidenced by her book, “Dance as a Way of Being,” dedicated to Mussolini, which I recently found on an online platform for $8,000.
Gianluca Bocchino’s work reconstructs the stages of a career that was unusual and dazzling for the time. Establishing a school, the National Academy of Dance, to educate the new generations in beauty and dance, establishing a foundation to support less well-off girls, former single and dormant dancers, asking then-Minister Bottai about the ” Granting a Ministerial Diploma enabling any student to teach dance classes ‘licensed’ from the Specialization Course, an internal institute where the Academy’s students may study. In addition to an interesting bibliography, Gianluca Bocchino has patiently reconstructed the chronology of his shows (hundreds), citing and recalling this universe of experimentation and enthusiasm, but also all the friends, colleagues, lovers and husbands who accompanied his rise (among others Curzio Malaparte). , Anton Giulio Bragaglia with his Teatro degli Indipendenti, Ettore Romagnoli who engaged her for the classical performances of Syracuse, Trilussa, Palazzeschi who dedicated poems and compositions to her).
The work is accompanied by unpublished, never published images, notably signed by a diva of the time, the Hungarian photographer Ghitta Garrel. But what remains almost 80 years after the founding of the Academy of Dance? Which lights, which shadows does Bocchino donate? “My work also wants to be a reflection, a political and social cross-section of culture between the 1930s and 1960s. Jia Ruskaja lived like a lioness, strong-willed and sensual, haughty and magnanimous, a proud “mother”, sometimes an autocrat, but always very generous to her favorite students, from Penzi to Calizza and Zoppolato, to whom she bequeathed even more beautiful jewels – replied Bocchino – The questions remain linked, for example, to his vast legacy that has disappeared and fallen into disrepair… By whom? And then the marriage to the powerful and amorous editor of the Corriere della Sera, the sudden divorce, perhaps to favor the rise of the ex-Mrs. Borelli, who after fascism apparently managed to hide her husband in one of the convents of the Aventine or the Clause on the Opera of the National Academy of Dance, as written in his own handwriting… “Should the Opera not be able, or in any case fail to, punctually and scrupulously keep the established honors, I order the inheritance” to the Bolshoi -Theatre of Moscow”.
Questions worthy of other essays, new studies, which perhaps will be partially answered by the journalist and writer Francobaldo Chiocci, who met and worked with Ruskaja, author of the first biography dedicated to the founder of the National Dance Academy, which is in the afterword to the book von Gianluca Bocchino writes: “It is difficult to explain who Jia Ruskaja is today. Much of the fame of this enigmatic, intriguing, yet controversial arouser of admiration and hostility remains lurking in a tangled artistic and existential mystery that must, however, be questioned.” If only for rediscovery and gratitude to the most complex, diverse, creative, and innovative Character that emerged from the Italian world of dance in the last century.”
