Dirty Dancing

Did a bitter feud at Moscow's famed Bolshoi Ballet prompt an acid attack on the company's artistic director?

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Yuri Kozyrev / NOOR for TIME

Filin leaves the hospital on Feb. 4. He has introduced contemporary productions to the Bolshoi repertoire

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Back at the Bolshoi, a few days after performing the part of the Evil Sorcerer, Tsiskaridze is teaching a class in one of the theater's rehearsal studios to a handful of young dancers. They seem to adore him, even though he teaches the class like a stand-up comedian ragging on his audience. "You look like frogs who got squished by a bus!" he chides. A few minutes earlier, a clerk had walked into the hall and delivered a notice for Tsiskaridze to sign. "Oh, Lord," he moaned. "What has Iksanov dreamed up for me now?" It was an official reprimand for an interview published that morning. Tsiskaridze had again eviscerated Iksanov in the press. "Don't sign it!" a few of the ballerinas shouted at him. "Stand up to him!" another said. After signing the reprimand--accompanying the flourish with a sigh--Tsiskaridze went on with the class. "Denis!" he shouted at Rodkin. "You look like a little girl trying to stand up in a canoe!" The ballerinas tittered, gripping the barre. It was a rare moment of levity at the Bolshoi. Rodkin, speaking after the practice session, seems dejected. "The world now sees us as some kind of a madhouse," he says. As the artistic director of this great symbol of Russia recuperates from his injuries in Germany, the feuding at the Bolshoi continues. Talk of healing its scars has not even begun.

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