Budding Thai dancers learn a few moves from a visiting Russian ballet company

Moving on the tips of your toes, standing with feet splayed outwards at right-angles, or spinning your body like a top. For the untrained it would look clownish, clumsy and awkward. But for young Thai ballet dancers at a special workshop run by Russia's Kremlin Ballet Company, it looked natural, elegant and graceful.

The young dancers were learning some techniques from the Russian style of ballet as part of celebrations for International Russian Culture Day 2008 in Thailand.

Nikolay Fedopov, head teacher of the Kremlin Ballet, said he was very pleased with the skills and performance of Thai students.

"This country has many kids born for ballet," he said. "I hope our two countries will one day join together to open a Russian Ballet school here."

Ballet is a form of dance with its origins in the Italian Renaissance in the late 15th century. It was further developed in France, then in Russia and Denmark in the 18th century. It was from Russia that it eventually returned to Western Europe before it spread around the world.

Fahsai Thaweesak, 17, a dancer from Mater Dei School, said that joining the workshop had given her a better understanding of Russian-style ballet.

"The movement of the body in Russian ballet is a little bit stronger than that in the English style of dancing I have learned. The teacher asked us to bend our knees and lower our bodies more when dancing."

The Russian ballet workshop was held at the Patravadi Theatre and attracted 32 participants from ballet schools in Bangkok.

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Russian pirouettes

>> The Kremlin Ballet Theatre was founded in 1990 by a famous Russian choreographer and National Artist, Andrey Petrov. The theatre is situated in the State Kremlin Palace, inside the Kremlin in Moscow.