Craft Your Identity
Our vision is to establish a 6-year private school for youth ages 8-16, the formative years during which identity formation take place. The prototype for the school is the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, a place which has long been a cradle for world-renowned individuals such as George Balanchine, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov to name a few.
Established in 1778, the Vaganova Academy is an 8-year elite school where the competition to get in is fierce. The education there is based on principles that create a foundation for strong identity, which is the signature of the academy’s graduates.
Unfortunately this opportunity is available to only the privileged few, and even money cannot buy an education like this.
In December 2006, the founders of The First Guild traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia to visit the academy and establish connections, after which the idea of creating a Vaganova-inspired school in the US was born.
The vision is to develop the first of its kind private school where young people are trained in the principles that form healthy identity. These principles are the foundation upon which presence, focus, order and other qualities naturally form.
The school will utilize classical dance as the core modality to teach these principles and develop these qualities as this high artform inherently carries this information within its structure.
Our plan is to start with a one year pilot program working with a group of middle-school age boys who are in the crucial stages of their identity formation process.
We believe that the type of school we are proposing is unique and of great value as it provides a solution to many of the issues we face in our society with the growing generations and fill-in a crucial gap within today’s educational system.