Hi, I’m Irina. Dance has been my great passion since childhood! At the age of 12 I started an internal ballet training at the Volks Ballet Theater in Izhevsk, Udmurdt Republic. My ballet teachers were professional people from Perm and the Vaganova Academies. In total I danced at the Volks Ballet Theater for 25 years; from short ballet to soloist. A large part of my repertoire consisted of classical ballet such as Paquita by Minkus, Francesca da Rimini by Tchaikovsky, Grand Pas by Don Quixote by Minkus, Pas-de-deux by Korsar, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Esmeralda etc. I also have character ballet repertory and modern choreographies.
More than five ballets, some pas-de-deux and many dance pieces by choreographer Alexander Kurbatov of St. Peterburg Conservatory have been created especially for me.
I have won many different prizes and awards. In 1994 I was invited to teach classical ballet at a professional dance school in Izsevsk. In the Netherlands I worked for a number of years as a volunteer and as a permanent teacher at the Russian School of Arts. I have choreographed the following performances: Izumbosi (Japanese fairy tale), Kinderkamer, The Beast, Ivan the Fool (Russian fairy tale), The City of Rejected Princesses, The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky.
In recent years I have been busy with my ballet projects where I have not only made choreography, but also costumes. These are mini ballets such as “Spanish Miniatures”, “Magic Gardens of Naina” and “Feast on Olympus”.
I teach ballet at the Leiden Ballet & Theater School.
