Uljana Lopatkina

Uljana Lopatkina

Born in Kerch in 1973, Uljana Lopatkina started taking ballet classes at the age of four. She studied in St. Petersburg at the Vaganova Ballet Academy under the distinguished ballerina Natalia Dudinskaya and won the international Vaganova Ballet Contest in 1991.
On that occasion, John Neumeier noticed Lopatkina's exceptional expressiveness and created a ballet miniature for her. She was engaged at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1991 and within a few seasons evolved to one of the outstanding ballerinas of the company. In 1996 Uljana Lopatkina was selected as the best ballerina of the year and in 1997 she was awarded the Golden Mask for her performance in Sinfonie in C. Her repertoire includes all the main roles for ballerinas like Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, Nikija in La Bayadère, Zarema in The Fountain of Bachtschissarai, modern parts as the girl in Roland Petit´s Le jeune homme et la mort and so on. As one of the most important dancers of our time, she has been sought-after as guest ballerina in all main cities of dance between Tokio and New York. She gave her first guest performance at the Bavarian State Ballet in Terpsichore-Gala 1 that opened the season 1999/2000. During the Ballet Week 2000 she performed the role of Nikija in La Bayadère.