Alexander Viktorovich Shiryaev (; — 25 April 1941) was a Russian ballet dancer, ballet master and choreographer, founder of character dance in Russian ballet who served at the Mariinsky Theatre. Shiryaev was also a pioneering animation director who is credited with invention of stop motion animation.
Early life
Alexander Shiryaev was born into an artistic family; both of his parents performed at the Bolshoi Theatre: his mother Ekaterina Ksenophontovna Shiryaeva was a ballet dancer, member of corps de ballet, and his father Hector (Viktor) Cesarovich Puni was a flautist who studied under Cesare Ciardi. According to the Soviet ballerina Ninel Yultyeva, he was an illegitimate child, raised under his mother's surname. His paternal grandfather Cesare Pugni was a famous Italian composer of ballet music who moved to Russia in 1851 to work for Imperial Theatres. Alexander's cousin Ivan Puni was a well-known Russian avant-garde artist.
At the age of nine Alexander entered the Saint Petersburg Imperial Theatrical School where he studied under Marius Petipa, Pavel Gerdt, Platon Karsavin and Lev Ivanov. He graduated in 1885 and in a year became a member of the Mariinsky Theatre troupe.
Ballet career
Shiryaev quickly rose to fame. During the studies he already managed to learn almost the entire repertoire of Mariinka, thus he easily substituted solo performers, both in classical and character roles. Shiryaev's musical talent and extraordinary visual memory gained him a place of Marius Petipa's assistant and tutor. He easily recollected all movements, reconstructing and finishing ballets after his teacher. He helped to stage The Seasons, Harlequinade, The Trial of Damis, among others. As a ballet master he helped Petipa to bring back such ballets as Coppélia, The Little Humpbacked, The Pharaoh's Daughter, Tsar Kandavl or Le Roi Candaule and Giselle.
Around the same time he became deeply interested in character dance. In 1891 Shiryaev, aged 24, opened and headed the first character class under the Theatrical School. He studied and implemented elements of Russian, Hungarian, Spanish and other national dances into his ballets.
He was the first performer of the Buffoon part in The Nutcracker (the role was edited out from later productions) which he also staged, gaining praise from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky himself. He also performed the buffoon dance from Mlada, Russian dance from Dubrovsky, dance of jesters and skomorokhs from The Merchant Kalashnikov and other operas directed by Lev Ivanov. Some of his famous ballet performances include Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty, Ivanushka in The Little Humpbacked Horse, Quasimodo in La Esmeralda, Harlequin in Harlequinade, Dr. Coppélius in Coppélia and Abderakhman in Raymonda.
In 1905 a new director of Imperial Theatres made Shiryaev leave the theatre. After that Shiryaev spent a lot of time touring around Europe. He also opened a training school in London; his students later joined the troupe led by Anna Pavlova. After the October revolution he worked both as a dancer and a pedagogue in the Mariinsky and Alexandrinsky Theatres, restoring forgotten ballets. In 1921 he left the stage and became a teacher at the Leningrad Choreographic Institute where he had worked for the rest of his life. Among his students were such acclaimed artists as Michel Fokine, Fyodor Lopukhov, Pyotr Gusev, Galina Ulanova, Yury Grigorovich, Nina Anisimova.
Animation
During his 1904—1905 visits to London Shiryaev acquired a 17.5 mm film Biokam camera and started filming ballets, as well as making home movies involving his family, comedy and trick films. His suggestion to film primary dancers of the Mariinka for free was rejected by the theatre management.
After that he built an improvised studio at his apartment where he carefully recreated various ballets by staging them using hand-made dolls which he created from either clay or papier-mâché; they were 20—25 centimeters tall, and their body parts were connected by thin wire which provided plasticity. He then filmed them on camera, frame by frame. In the process he also made thousands of sketches, catching every movement, also turning them into a filming reel so that one could watch the entire dance in form of a cartoon.