David Dawson

Dresden SemperOper Ballett (Germany) British choreographer David Dawson is one of the most innovative dance makers working in classical ballet today. His personal choreographic style transforms classical ballet in new ways, and his signature works are atmospheric, emotionally physical, abstract/narrative pieces that have been praised by critics and audiences worldwide. Dawson's works have been performed in more than 25 countries and entered repertoires of many ballet companies. Dawson was honoured with the Prix Benois de la Danse Award for choreography and nominated for the UK Critics' Circle National Dance Award as Best Classical Choreographer for The Grey Area. The process of choreographing this ballet was vividly illustrated in Tim Couchman's film 'The Grey Area' in Creation. Dawson created Reverence for the Mariinsky Ballet, for which he was awarded Russia's highest theatre prize for visual art, the Golden Mask Award, as Best Choreographer, and became the first British choreographer to create a ballet for this legendary company. He received the Choo San Goh Award for Choreography for The Gentle Chapters and was nominated for The Golden Swan Award, as Best Choreographer for Overture and 00:00. For his re-imagining of Faun(e), created for the English National Ballet's Ballets Russes Festival at the Sadler's Wells in London, Dawson has been nominated as Best Classical Choreographer for the UK Critics’ Circle National Dance Award and the Prix Benois de la Danse Choreography Award. Dawson has created numerous ballets internationally, including his full-length Giselle, which had its world premiere at the Semperoper. Amongst other significant works are The Human Seasons, day4, The Third Light, Morning Ground, Das Verschwundene|The Disappeared, A Sweet Spell of Oblivion, On the Nature of Daylight, The World According to Us, dancingmadlybackwards, 5, Opus.11 and his highly acclaimed timelapse/(Mnemosyne).

Igor Zelensky

People's artist of Russia, laureate of the International competition of ballet artists in Paris, Laureate and diploma winner of the National Theatre Prize “Golden Mask” and laureate of the Novosibirsk Region State Award, laureate of the Paradise Award, member of the Board of Trustees of the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre Igor Zelensky was born on July 13, 1969, in Labinsk, and soon moved to Tbilisi, his father’s fatherland. He graduated from the Tbilisi School of Ballet (class of Vakhtang Chabukiani) and trained at the Vaganova academy (class of Gennady Selutsky). He is a principal at the Mariinsky Ballet since 1991, danced all the leading roles of the ballet’s repertoire, participated in all the touring projects of the Theatre. Important period of his career is connected to the New York City Ballet, where he was a principal from 1992 to 1998. He also has performed as a guest dancer around the world, including with the Royal Ballet in London, at La Scala in Milan, at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, with the New York City Ballet and many more. He has danced with many professional ballerinas during his career. Zelensky became an artistic director of Ballet of the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in 2006 and artistic director of ballet company of The Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre in 2011. Since 2008 The Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre is holding the only international ballet festival beyond the Urals – Siberian Ballet Festival, initiated by Igor Zelensky.

Galina Stepanenko

Born in Moscow. She graduated from the Moscow College of Choreography (today the Moscow State Academy of Choreography), where she trained in Sophia Golovkina’s graduates’ class. From 1984-88, she was a soloist with the Moscow Classical Ballet Company (today the State Academic Theatre of Classical Ballet led by Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyev) where she danced, among other parts, the title role in Nathalie, ou La Laitiere Suisse, music by Adalbert Gyrowetz, in a production by Pierre Lacotte after Filippo Taglioni, the part of She-devil in Andrei Petrov’s The Creation of the World produced by Natalya Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyev. She also danced in Theme and Variations to music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, thus becoming one of the few ballerinas at that time to have danced in a George Balanchine ballet whose works were then virtually not performed in Russia. She created the lead role in Bachiana to music by Heitor Villa-Lobos, produced for her and Vladimir Malakhov by Alberto Alonso. From 1988-90, she danced for the Moscow Academic Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Ballet Company where she performed the following, among other, roles: Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, Kupava in The Snow Maiden to music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky (both works by Vladimir Bourmeister), Medora in Le Corsaire in a production by Dmitri Bryantsev. In 1990, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet Company. She rehearsed under the guidance of Marina Semyonova (with whom she prepared the majority of the roles in her repertoire), Marina Kondrateva, Raisa Struchkova and Yekaterina Maximova. In 1992, she completed her studies at the Russian Academy of Theatre Art (teacher Marina Semyonova), qualifying as teacher-choreographer. In December 2012 Galina Stepanenko retired from her artistic career and became a ballet mistress of the Bolshoi Ballet Company. In autumn 2013 became a ballet company manager at the Bolshoi Ballet Company.

His supple, androgynous body combines, power and purity, flash and elegance, melodrama and eye-boggling academic precision — when he leaps you feel gravity has been suspended.

Vladimir Malakhov

Born in Kryvyi Rih (Ukraine), began his dance training at the age of four at a ballet school in that region. Continued his training at the school of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow (class of Peter Pestov) and upon graduation in 1986 joined the Moscow Classical Ballet as that company's youngest principal dancer. Critically acclaimed globally for his artistic lyricism, he has won prestigious awards in his field from competitions in Varna, Moscow and Paris. In 1992, Malakhov joined the Vienna State Opera Ballet as a principal artist, in 1994 — the National Ballet of Canada, in 1995 he had his debut with the American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Since that time, he has remained a principal dancer with ABT and has continued to dance principal roles in Vienna as well as the renowned Stuttgart Ballet. Malakhov also appeared quite often as a guest in Berlin. His repertory encompasses a wide range of styles from classical ballets to the works of today's contemporary choreographers. In 1999 Malakhov staged is first ballet La Bayadère Ludwig Minkus in Vienna State Opera. On the same stage in 2001 he set his first individual production A Masked Ball to the music by Giuseppe Verdi. In 2002 he became an artistic director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Ballet and since 2004 he was appointed to the position of the Berlin State Ballet. Vladimir Malakhov is a laureate of Benois de la Danse Prize.