by Julia Guiheen | 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 Laura Cappelle | Feb 19, 2018 | Career, Company Life
Ella Persson remembers the rehearsals for her debut as Giselle. “I was in my first year with the company, and I started preparing with Mikhail Messerer during late evenings,” the Mikhailovsky Ballet’s Swedish-born coryphée says. “I was...
by Julia Guiheen | Oct 18, 2017 | Profiles, TBT
When Maya Plisetskaya first toured abroad with the Bolshoi Ballet, she stunned the world. Her dramatic and technical abilities were far beyond what anyone outside the Soviet Union had seen before. She quickly became an icon, symbolizing Russian ballet. Plisetskaya was...
by Hannah Foster | Mar 23, 2016 | Company Life
When I first saw this clip of Leonid Lavrovsky’s Walpurgis Night, I didn’t know what the ballet was about, nor did I care. I was completely transfixed by Maya Plisetskaya. From one-legged hops on pointe to a grand saut de chat, she springs off the ground...
by Hannah Foster | Mar 9, 2016 | Company Life
Spring may be 10 days away, but we’re anxious for its arrival—so we’re dedicating this #ThrowbackThursday to the Spring Waters pas de deux. Created by Russian choreographer and former Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Asaf Messerer, this short concert...
by Lauren Wingenroth | Nov 28, 2001 | Company Life
This weekend the ballet world lost a legend. Maya Plisetskaya, a star of the Bolshoi Ballet who danced ambitiously into her 60s, died of a heart attack at age 89 on Saturday. Dancer, choreographer, teacher and director, Plisetskaya was known for her tumultuous history...