St. Petersburg, Russia will always have a special place in the heart of Ballet Manila artistic director Lisa Macuja Elizalde. It was there, after all, that she became a student at the Leningrad Choreographic School (now Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet) and would later be invited to be a soloist of the famed Kirov Ballet (Mariinsky Ballet).

In March, she had a chance to travel to St. Petersburg with husband Fred J. Elizalde. “Returning to the school where I first started learning the Vaganova method of ballet training was a dream come true. Returning to the city that I consider my second home was too good to be true. I cried. Was too emotional,” Lisa wrote in a Facebook post.

Later, in another Facebook post where she shared more photos, she said: “It’s the people that make a visit even more special. The friends you haven’t seen in such a long time. The colleagues that are bound to you by memories and mutual acquaintances. The people you love and respect and consider as family. These are the special moments of a trip down memory lane in a city you lived in for many years in the past.”

Looking through the Ballet Manila Archives files, we found old photographs to pair with the new ones for this nostalgic “then and now” feature documenting a ballerina’s sentimental journey and celebrating a remarkable past.

Class act

THEN: Lisa learns the rudiments of Vaganova training in class, with the portrait of ballet pedagogue Agrippina Vaganova – who developed the method – hanging on the wall.

NOW: Revisiting the space where her Vaganova roots began, still with the familiar portrait serving as inspiration to new generations of students

Student life

THEN: Lisa (fifth from left) and her classmates were mentored by Tatiana Udalenkova Alexandrovna, Merited Artist of Russia, who also became like a second mother to her.

NOW: Lisa poses for a group picture with teacher Ira Jhelonkina and her graduating class in the same space she also danced in in the 1980s. Jhelonkina performed with Ballet Manila at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

 Entryway

THEN: Lisa stands outside the door through which she passed innumerable times when she became a student at the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1982.

NOW: The signage and the doors may have changed, but it’s the same entrance she would walk through in the past.

Break time

THEN: Bundled up in winter clothes, Lisa (second from left) enjoys a snowy stroll with classmates outside the Leningrad Choreographic School.

NOW: Walking down the same familiar street four decades later

School friends

THEN: Lisa (front, rightmost) shares a light moment with her classmates and their teacher Tatiana Udalenkova Alexandrovna and classmates. To her right is Margarita Kullich who became one of her closest friends.

NOW: Catching up with school pals Vladimir Kim and Margarita Kullich

At home

THEN: From the school dormitory, Lisa would eventually move to the apartment of her beloved mentor Tatiana Udalenkova Alexandrovna and her husband, People’s Artist of Russia Sergei Vikulov, and their son Alexander who all treated her like family.

NOW: Reunited with her Russian “parents” in the same quarters she lived in back in the 1980s

The coach

THEN: Kirov’s rehearsal mistress Galina Petrovna Kekisheva coached Lisa for the Peasant pas de deux of Giselle, one of the first roles assigned to Lisa when she joined the Kirov and which also happened to be a signature role of Kekisheva as a ballerina with the same company.

NOW: A cherished reunion between the coach and the dancer

Curtain call

THEN: Curtain call for her full-length debut as the lead in Giselle as a soloist of Kirov Ballet

NOW: About to watch a performance of Giselle at the Mariinsky Theater

On stage

THEN: Lisa (fourth from left) brings her Ballet Manila family to the stage of the Mariinsky Theater for a souvenir photograph in 2001.

NOW: Twenty-three years later, Lisa (third from left) is back on the Mariinsky Theater stage after watching a performance of Giselle. With her are (from left): Vladimir Kim, coach of danseur Philip Styopkin who stands beside him and who just danced as Albrecht, prima ballerina Renata Shakirova who was Giselle, and Victor Fateyev, the director of ballet in Mariinsky Theater and with whom Lisa danced the Peasant pas de deux decades before. Shakirova is featured in the lead of Ballet Manila’s staging of Giselle in August with her husband, soloist Aleksei Timofeyev, as Albrecht.

Museum tour

THEN: Lisa revisits the museum at the Vaganova Academy in 2001 when Ballet Manila went to Russia for a series of performances.

NOW: This time around, school directress Janna Ayupova takes Lisa and husband Fred J. Elizalde on a tour of the museum. Janna was Lisa’s batchmate at the Academy and was also a soloist the Kirov.