ballet.co Kirov female dancers

Kirov Female dancers

Zhanna Ayupova, principal


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Zhanna Ayupova is a perfect exemplar of the purity of the Kirov style. Her sublime Aurora was widely praised. Every facet of her performance is perfectly proportioned. Her pure dancing has poise and harmony, and radiates an inner calm that feels as soothing as a religious blessing.

In "Chopiniana" Ayupova is ravishing as the Mazurka ballerina. Her Masha in the Vainonen production of "Nutcracker" has the requisite grandeur, and she dances Juliet movingly with a quiet dignity. {kirov dancers}

Maya Dumchenko, first soloist

© Natasha Razina
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Maya Dumchenko is a true classicist blessed with the old Kirov style. She is a tall and lyrical dancer, and has a lovely flow of movements and crystalline footwork. Dumchenko is a passionate and delicate Juliet. Her title role in Fokine's "Firebird" is lustrous and more human-like. She is a true gem as the second ballerina in "Rubies". {kirov dancers}

Irina Golub, second soloist

© Natasha Razina
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Irina Golub is an eye-catchingly vivid dancer. Her dancing combines delicacy as well as strength. She is outstanding as the “Rubies” ballerina, ravishing as the first odalisque in "Le Corsaire", and explosive as Gamzetti in "La Bayadere". She shows a sparkling brilliance in Forsythe's "In the Middle Somewhat Elevated". In 2004, Golub made a successful debut as Juliet, in which she gave a smoothly enchanting performance. {kirov dancers}

Sofya Gumerova, first soloist


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Sofia Gumerova has an elegant line and beautiful tapering legs. She is a dancer of sweet charm, and has improved tremendously since her debut as Odette/Odile in London in 2001. Gumerova creates a lovely and delightful Medora, and dances beautifully as the Swan Queen. In "La Bayadere" she is persuasive as Nikiya and displays a good level of artistry. She also dances the second ballerina in "Emeralds" and the "Diamonds" ballerina. {kirov dancers}

Svetlana Ivanova, coryphee


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Svetlana Ivanova has a fine-boned physique complemented by her extra thin legs. She is a stylish Princess Florine in "Sleeping Beauty". {kirov dancers}

Ekaterina Kondaurova, coryphee


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Ekatarina Kondaurova is a tall and gorgeous dancer. She has extra-long limbs and impeccable technique. Her style recalls the great Uliana Lopatkina.

Kondaurova made an impressive Medora in London two years ago. Since then she has been on the path of a rising star. She is stunning and exquisite in "La Valse", and has also received high praise as the Siren in "The Prodigal Son" and as Zobiede in "Scheherazade". {kirov dancers}

Uliana Lopatkina, principal


Ballet.co interview (7/2005) Ballet.co interview (6/2005) Ballet.co interview (1999) Reviews "Lopatkina" in postings?

Uliana Lopatkina is a prima ballerina by right, and her beautiful dancing sums up the very spirit of the Petersburg school. She breathes new life into the classics like "La Bayadere" and "Swan Lake". Lopatkina's dancing as the Swan Queen has an endearing youthfulness, as fresh as the morning dew, as well as a warm femininity. Her long and lissom line, as taut as an arrow, is ravishing.

Her ethereal figure suits the Adagio in "Symphony in C", her dancing sings with deep feelings and perfection of skill. Lopatkina is also one of the Kirov's best actresses (she's a burning Zobeide in "Scheherazade"), capable of expressing herself to the entire audience with a flick of the wrist, and tapering her high extensions into a musical phrase like a painter controlling a fine sable brush. {kirov dancers}

Yulia Makhalina, principal


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Yulia Makhalina was the first of a new crop of Kirov ballerinas in the early 1990s distinguished from the previous generations by their height and remarkable thinness, and nicknamed 'the basketball team'. Technically dazzling, especially in her high extensions, she has matured in her interpretations of the classics. Her Odette has a tragic dimension. Makhalina is also a voluptuous Zobeide in "Scheherazade". {kirov dancers}

Olesia Novikova, coryphee


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Olesia Novikova, a 2002 Vaganova Ballet Academy graduate, is a good-looking, gentle and graceful dancer with a strong technique and very quick legwork. She is remarkable in the first shade variation in "La Bayadere", as Kitri in "Don Quixote", and in Balanchine’s "Tchaikovsky pas de deux". Her latest new roles are Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty", Gulnara in "Le Corsaire", the second ballerina in Balanchine’s "Ballet Imperial". She and Leonid Sarafanov make a very good partnership. {kirov dancers}

Evgenia Obraztsova, coryphee

© Natasha Razina
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A pupil of Ninel Kurgapkina, this young talented dancer who just won the Gold Medal in the Moscow Competition has been compared to Galina Ulanova. Endowed with a perfectly-proportioned body and a beautiful face, her dancing is lucid and has a youthful freshness and radiance. Her Juliet is very touching. Obraztsova is also perfectly suited to the title role in "La Sylphide" with her lightness and delicacy. {kirov dancers}

Daria Pavlenko, principal

© Natasha Razina
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Daria Pavlenko has a bold but expressive face. She is a gracious Nikiya, and displays lyricism and musicality as Odette in Swan Lake. In "Diamonds", she manages all the virtuosic passages with a smooth softness in the principal ballerina role. In "La Valse" she is tender as the woman in white. Pavlenko is stunning as the Snow Queen in Chemyakin's production of "Nutcracker", and also does honours to the Lilac Fairy in "The Sleeping Beauty". In January she made an impressive debut in "Manon". {kirov dancers}

Yana Selina, coryphee


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It is always a pleasure to see small and sunny Yana Selina dance. She is faultless, academic and noble. She is quite a rare example now of inborn femininity. She charms. She is unique as the Cat in "Sleeping Beauty" - the most tender and the most mischievous of all Cats. {kirov dancers}

Natalia Sologub, first soloist

© Natasha Razina
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Natalia Sologub is a beautiful classical dancer with a wide range. She dances the classics with 21st century manners. She is sensational and simply ecstatic in the title role in Ratmansky’s production of "Cinderella". Sologub shines as Masha which she created in Kiril Simonov’s production of "The Nutcracker". She portrays Masha’s teenage innocence with real feeling. Sologub also excels in pure dance ballets. She imparts a sense of mystery in "Steptext" and is most poetic in the waltz in "Serenade". {kirov dancers}

Alina Somova, coryphee


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Alina Somova, a 2003 Vaganova Ballet Academy graduate, is a tall, slim blond dancer with beautifully shaped long limbs. Her first success was the ballerina in "Etudes" in which she charmed the public by her youthfulness, beauty, grace, tenderness, and the cantilena of her dancing. She also surprised by the courage with which she overcame the technical difficulties of the ballet. The last is still the distinct feature of Somova, and it seems she always tries to do her best.

She has also received praise as Odette/Odile in "Swan Lake", the Queen of Dryads in "Don Quixote", Medora in "Le Corsaire". Being still so young, her performances are not always technically successful and her interpretations of the roles sometimes demand more depth. {kirov dancers}

Viktoria Tereshkina, first soloist

© Natasha Razina
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Viktoria Tereshkina is a very-talented and hard-working young dancer with a virtuoso technique and great panache who in only four years has made an impressive progress from a Vaganova Academy graduate to a first soloist. Her technical brilliance, academic style, clear graphic pattern of dance, beautiful sharp line, regal carriage, confidence and expressiveness have won the love of the public.

She can be very impressive both in the classics (Gamzatti and Nikya in "La Bayadere", Kitri in "Don Quixote", Myrtha in "Giselle", Odette/Odile in "Swan Lake") and in the modern classical ballets (in Balanchine’s "Ballet Imperial", as the Choleric ballerina in "The Four Temperaments", as Terpsichore in "Apollo", in Forsythe’s "Approximate Sonata"). {kirov dancers}

Diana Vishneva, principal

© Natasha Razina
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Diana Vishneva distinguishes herself as an allegro dancer excelling in technical dynamics. Considered by some as more suitable for the neo-classical ballets, she possesses the qualities of a scintillating star, dancing with a strong sense of individuality. Her technical and artistic abilities create a most gratifying combination.

Vishneva is a very passionate Juliet, and a charming and radiantly sweet Aurora. In "Rubies" and "Don Quixote", she fills the dance with panache, energy and spark. {kirov dancers}

Elena Vostrotina, corps


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Still in the corps de ballet, Elena Vostrotina, who only joined the Kirov in 2003, is a tremendously exciting dancer of great potential with her high extensions and her formidable technique; her series of Italian fouettes in the solo of the Queen of Dryads in "Don Quixote" are breathtaking. She made her debut as Odette/Odile in the summer of 2004. {kirov dancers}

Olga Yesina, corps


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Olga Yesina joined the Kirov only last year but has already made an impression on the public by her beauty and academic style. Earlier this year she sparkled as the Lilac Fairy and as the Queen of Dryads demonstrating the best academic tradition of the St. Petersburg school. {kirov dancers}

Irina Zhelonkina, first soloist

© Natasha Razina
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Irina Zhelonkina is a dancer with a gorgeous plastique, and is an epitome of classical purity. She creates a simple yet exquisite touch in every role she dances. Zhelonkina is splendid as Princess Florine, Juliet's friend, and in the pas de trios in "Swan Lake". She is also outstanding as Gulnara in "Le Corsaire", and dances with supreme lyricism and tenderness in "Chopiniana". She is exquisite in the main role of Marie in "Fountain of Bakhchisarai". It is a pity that she doesn't get to dance leading roles more often on overseas tours. {kirov dancers}

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www.ballet.co.uk/links/dancers_kirov_women.htm	revised: 25 July 2005
Bruce Marriott email, © all rights reserved, all wrongs denied. credits
written by Kevin Ng, NO7 and A.M. © email	all images courtesy of authors