by Doug Fullington | Nov 26, 2025 | Career, Dance History, Pointe+, Training
Many versions of The Sleeping Beauty are performed by companies all over the world. While each of these has its own artistic value, their source is nearly always Marius Petipa’s original choreography, made for the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet in 1890. As a dance...
by Julia Rosica | Aug 26, 2020 | TBT
Among her storied gifts, Maya Plisetskaya, former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, was renowned for her ability to imbue classical choreography with rich layers of meaning. In this 1963 clip of Aurora’s Act I variation from The Sleeping Beauty,...
by Julia Rosica | Aug 7, 2019 | Profiles, Viral Videos
English National Ballet star Alina Cojocaru was still a Royal Ballet principal in 2006 when she guest-starred in the Mariinsky Ballet’s production of The Sleeping Beauty. And as this clip of her Aurora proves, she is indeed a vision in Act II’s dream...
by Sasha De Sola As Told To Claudia Bauer | Jul 15, 2019 | Instagram, Profiles, Technique
The first time I saw Sleeping Beauty was on video, the Kirov version with Larissa Lezhnina. The music for the first entrance gave me butterflies. Aurora comes out, and it captured my heart. Larissa coached me for my first season of Aurora, and just the fact that we...
by Natalia Boesch | Jun 18, 2019 | Profiles
Your teacher at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Marcia Dale Weary, recently passed away. What impact did she have on you? I feel deeply indebted to her. She shaped my life’s course, and I know that were it not for her, I would not be living out my dream...
by Julia Rosica | Jan 23, 2019 | Profiles, TBT
Irina Kolpakova, currently a ballet mistress at American Ballet Theatre at age 85, is a living dance legend. She studied under Agrippina Vaganova and went on to dance as prima ballerina at the Kirov Ballet (now the Mariinsky). In the ’60s, she astonished...
by Julia Rosica | May 30, 2018 | Profiles, Viral Videos
It’s been an exciting few weeks in New York City with both American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet in the midst of their respective seasons at Lincoln Center. With so many homegrown stars in the spotlight, it’s wonderful to remember the past...
by Julia Rosica | Jul 5, 2017 | Profiles, TBT
Diana Vishneva gave her final performance with American Ballet Theatre last month after 12 years as a principal. The Russian ballerina made her first appearance with ABT even earlier as a guest artist in 2003. In this video of Aurora’s Act III variation from the...