Vaslav Nijinsky as the
Golden Slave in
'Scheherezade', 1910

   Based at Boston University, the Ballets Russes Cultural Partnership is a non-profit cultural organization devoted to international exchange and collaboration in visual art, music, dance, theater and film. The Partnership particularly focuses its programming on the cultural relationship between the US and Russia, as well as other countries of the former USSR. By building international creative partnerships, encouraging creative exploration, and facilitating projects that foster research and education, it strives to encourage understanding and cooperation on the basis of the fine and performing arts. The inspiration of this effort is the legendary performing company known as the Ballets Russes (1909-1929), an international troupe with Russian roots that flowered in Europe and became a unique example of international collaboration and cultural exchange, transforming the aesthetic environment of modern life. By crossing aesthetic and national boundaries, the Ballets Russes awoke audiences to a new artistic vision, spurred innovation in the fine arts and helped cement lasting ties between Russia, Europe and America.

   In May 2009 the Partnership presented the Ballets Russes 2009 festival, which honored the artistic innovations and lasting influence of the Ballets Russes on Western culture. The only festival of its kind in the US, it explored all of the art forms influenced by the Ballets Russes, and brought together in Boston participant institutions and individuals from Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the New England Area. The program of events included dance and musical performance, exhibitions, films, an academic conference, a ball and other activities. Before the centenary, beginning in 2007, the organization presented programming that included performances and lectures. Since 2010, the Partnership has continued to present events in Boston and has worked to develop various cultural projects in Russia and Kazakhstan. Following a recipe for success perfected during the Ballets Russes 2009 festival, the Partnership the Partnership brings institutions together with individuals to expand the impact of its programming, and welcomes practitioners, scholars, students and amateurs of the arts.

Anna Winestein is an historian of Russian art and theater, independent curator, and cultural entrepreneur. In addition to co-directing the Ballets Russes 2009 festival in Boston with Peter Rand, she has curated several exhibitions, including Danser Vers La Gloire: L’Age d’Or des Ballets Russes, for Sotheby’s Galerie Charpentier in Paris, and The Magical Reality of Alexandre Benois at the Boston Public Library, for both of which she wrote the catalogues. She is co-editor and co-author of The Ballets Russes and the Art of Design (2009, Monacelli Press, New York), translator of Alexander Tcherepnin: Saga of an Emigre Composer (Indiana University Press, 2007) and author of scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed and lay journals. Most recently, in 2011, Anna Winestein was a Cultural Envoy to Kazakhstan for the US State Department on a Modern Dance project that she developed with choreographer Rebecca Rice.

A former Fulbright Scholar, Ms. Winestein holds separate degrees in art history, painting and economics, and is currently in the final stages of the doctorate in modern history at Oxford University. Her dissertation is a broad exploration of Russian artists in Paris, 1870 to 1930, but her other research ranges, including aspects of dance and theater history, cultural exchange between Russia and Europe in late imperial times, and the Russian emigration. Anna Winestein also serves on the Board of Directors of the Hermitage Museum Foundation in New York.

Peter Rand is a writer of fiction and nonfiction who has contributed to many publications. He is the author of four works of fiction, including the novels Firestorm and Gold from Heaven, and of the nonfiction book China Hands: The Adventures and Ordeals of the American Journalists Who Joined Forces with the Great Chinese Revolution and the editor of Scarlet Memorial. Rand is also the co-editor of Deng Xiaoping: Chronicle of an Empire, Tiananmen Follies: Prison Memoirs and other Writings by Dai Qing, and co-translator and editor of Zhou Enlai: The Last Perfect Revolutionary by Gao Wenqian. Rand has taught at Columbia University and Harvard University, and currently teaches at the College of Communication at Boston University.