DOLGUSHIN CELEBRATION.

ST. PETERSBURG--Last November Russian ballet enthusiasts celebrated two anniversaries of prominent dancer Nikita Dolgushin, whose virtuosity was always accompanied by stylistic accuracy: his sixtieth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of his creative life. For the last fifteen years he has taught young choreographers at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, as well as the conservatory's ballet troupe. This company took part in the two evenings of celebration.

For the first evening, the audience saw Dolgushin as Albrecht in Giselle, the role he performed for the first time forty years ago in the Kirov Ballet with a young Natalia Makarova as his partner. After a promising debut, Dolgushin left the Kirov Ballet for creative reasons. He danced on different Russian stages, won the gold medal in Varna with Ekaterina Maximova in 1964 and, after guest performances in Paris, won a ballet competition organized by the Paris University of Dance in 1966. The range of roles he has danced is vast: Colas and Petrouchka, Romeo and Pontius Pilatus, Basilio and Tsar Boris.

The second evening displayed Dolgushin not only as a dancer but also as a choreographer. Hamlet (set to Tchaikovsky) is one of his early Shakespearean roles; he also portrayed Othello, Iago, and King Lear. The Afternoon of a Faun was a stylish reconstruction of Vaslav Nijinsky's performance. The evening ended with Balanchine's Who Cares?, set to George Gershwin.

In recent years, Dolgushin, a classical dance expert, has taught dance seminars in Bulgaria, Great Britain, Mexico, and Peru. In 1991 he received a D.H.L. degree from Towson State University in Baltimore.