Russian Dance Highlights of 2020
The season was short, but the dancing was brilliant. Denis Grinishkin / Moskva News Agency
The pandemic of 2020 may go down in history as one of the most devastating events for world ballet. In March, Russian theaters closed for what everyone thought would be a short quarantine, and most returned to work in the rehearsal studios only during the summer months (the Bolshoi in July and the Mariinsky in June). Major Russian theaters managed to sustain some semblance of a routine season with varying degrees of success, though not without casualties: Dancers at both the Bolshoi and Mariinsky fell ill in significant numbers as their respective administrations attempted various policies of indoor social distancing to prevent further spreading Covid. By October, Mariinsky dancers were contracting Covid for the second time, since the antibodies from August when the first 60 fell ill had already disappeared. The Bolshoi fared about