No. 2 Pushechnaya Street

Having completed their conquest of Manhattan last week with a series of performances at Madison Square Garden, the Bolshoi dancers packed their ballet slippers and at week's end boarded two chartered planes for Los Angeles, first stop on their month-long cross-continent tour (other stops: San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal). They were traveling light--40 tons of scenery had gone ahead by train--but never had more first-class dancing talent been hoisted aloft. Although Galina Ulanova (TIME, May 11) towers over the other Russians, she is surrounded by dancers who would shine in any company. Among the names to watch:

Maya Plisetskaya, 35, the company's second-ranking ballerina, noted for her Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, her Mistress of the Copper Mountain in Stone Flower. Ideally equipped--with long, elegant legs and supple, expressive arms--she is famed for her extraordinary leaps, her steely precision on pointe. Perhaps the most finished technician in the company, she sometimes seems to lack warmth.

Raissa Struchkova, 34, a lyric dancer who appears frequently in Ulanova's great roles. Small and agile, she has a quick, filigreed technique, excels in partner work, where she can hover in supported attitudes as light and graceful as a puff of smoke. With her husband, Dancer Alexander Lapauri, she performs a breath-taking waltz number in one of the Highlights programs, repeatedly propelling herself up off the stage and landing like a bird in her partner's arms.

Nina Timofeyeva, 24, a dancer in the florid Plisetskaya style, identified with the same principal roles. Her execution of the famous 32 fouettes (snapped turns) in the "Black Swan Pas de Deux" in Swan Lake stopped the show at the Met.

Liudmila Bogomolova, 27, a latecomer to the Bolshoi school (at 13), who dances a number of the less familiar leading roles. In the current tour, she has distinguished herself in Shostakovich's Dance Suite. Light and sure, she has some of the lyric quality of Struchkova.

Ekaterina Maximova, 19, newly graduated from the Bolshoi school and a protege of Ulanova. Now appearing in her first big role--Katerina in Stone Flower --she displays a beautifully limpid line of movement, effortless control and more bubbly, fresh-faced charm than any other member of the company.

Yuri Zhdanov, 34, the company's leading partner in classical ballets, best known for his Romeo and his Albrecht in

Giselle opposite Ulanova. A powerfully built man, Zhdanov is limited as an actor but can perform in slow motion the most difficult lifts with the apparent ease of a man hoisting a bundle of feathers.

Nicolai Fadeyechev, 26, also an outstanding partner but a sounder actor than Zhdanov and a more exciting dancer. In Swan Lake's Black Swan variations, he astounds the eye with long, fluent, leisurely leaps.

Vladimir Levashev, 36, the company's most accomplished dancing actor, specializing in supporting character roles, usually villainous ones, e.g., the Evil Sorcerer in Swan Lake, with its climactic, convulsive death scene, plus the similar role of the Bailiff in Stone Flower. His best characterization is Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, where he dies from a sword wound in a remarkably protracted and moving series of reeling, off-balance movements.

Vladimir Vasiliev, 19, the youngest member of the Bolshoi company. A favorite trick: to bound straight off the stage, extend one leg, tuck the other under him and casually descend in perfect balance on one foot.

Turning out such dancers regularly is a feat on which the Russians spend almost as much thought and energy as on a FiveYear Plan. The Bolshoi company is schooled in a dingy, three-story building at No. 2 Pushechnaya Street in the heart of Moscow. The training school (one of 14 state ballet schools in Russia) is swamped by applications from 1,500 Russian 7-to 9-year-olds each year; no more than 40 are accepted. Bolshoi students get full board and tuition, wear traditional uniforms that vary with their ages, e.g., blue shirts and red ties for the younger boys, black-and-brown dresses and orange ties for the girls. Their rigid course takes nine years, with up to five hours of practice a day. On graduation day the students enter the state examination room, called by the school's Director Helen Bocharni-kova "the most terrifying place in Moscow," and dance for the choreographers of all Russia's major ballet theaters. They are then farmed out according to their ability, with the Bolshoi getting first pick of the crop.

What this elaborate training system accomplishes is 1) the preservation of a great Russian dance tradition and 2) the dazzling acrobatic skill and cheerful dedication that somehow bring conviction to even the hoariest ballet plots. What the Russians' training does not give them is new ideas; their great weakness is oldfashioned, unimaginative choreography and a concentration on emotional music, uncomplicated stories and characterizations of line-drawn simplicity.

The Bolshoi's visit may yet prove to be the best thing that ever happened to U.S. dance--if only because it sharpens appreciation of the spirit of restless experimentation that animates a company like the New York City Ballet. Last week, before leaving New York, the Bolshoi company watched the City Ballet rehearse three works by George Balanchine (see below). The Russians applauded the U.S. group's discipline, but were clearly puzzled by a modern style alien to their own. At one point during Stravinsky's atonal Agon (1957), Ballerina Galina Ulanova unbelievingly recalled an earlier (1911), romantic work by the same composer. "This," she asked a companion, "is the same Stravinsky who wrote Petrouchka?"

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