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  Human Connection

  01

  Dance is about our yearning to reach across the space between us. Dance breathes life into history and serves as a benevolent outlet to our reactions to war. Many of the artists on stage for “Reunited in Dance” have recently left their families, homes, and careers in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Over the course of months of uncertainty, dislocation, and anxiety, they have shared a very simple desire: to do together what they have been trained to do. To dance—in a tradition and at a standard unparalleled across the world—and to share their heartbreak and humanity with an audience.

  

  Global Tradition

  02

  While the story of Russian ballet has always been one of displacements and struggles, it is also a story that has always welcomed individuals from all nations. Long before the term “globalization” was invented, Russian ballet was global in its inspiration and reach. Like the Russian novel, St. Petersburg’s architecture, or, for that matter, Russian cuisine, Russian ballet has long-standing links to the rest of the world.
  
  “Reunited in Dance” celebrates Russian ballet on a stage very far from Moscow, with a cast largely comprised of non-Russian dancers. The tradition of Russian dance is a historically international one. By the middle of the 19th century, writers everywhere were describing the dancers on the Russian imperial stage as being endowed with “a “Russian soul,” a “Russian grace,” and a “Russian line.” Very soon, Russian ballet was serving as a model and influence in many other countries.

  

  Ballet Dancers

  03

  29-year-old Andrea Laššáková is from Dolny Kubin, Slovakia, but—like so many in the ballet world—left home early, moving to Bratislava to study dance at the age of 10. By the age of 17, she was in the Slovak National Ballet as a demi-soloist and joined the Finnish National Ballet two years later. While dancing there, she was given featured and leading roles, including the principal couple in Jerome Robbins’ masterpiece Glass Pieces. A year later,she was recruited by Mikhail Messerer to join the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg as a coryphée (a member of a small dancer ensemble). Italian-born Jacopo Tissi has worked at the Vienna State Ballet and La Scala in Milan, but in 2016 moved to Moscow to join the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. From there, he went on to dance much of the classical repertoire, rising to principal dancer in 2022. Tissi is one of the few foreigners to reach this position in the Bolshoi’s history. He left in March of this year, announcing that he had made the difficult decision to leave the Bolshoi—which he credits with helping him become the dancer he is today—due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  

  Challenging Journeys

  04

  “We left suddenly, in a way that was very difficult and verging on traumatic. We came to America without any real plan and just had to keep pushing ahead despite having no idea what the future held. Every day was a new adventure and it felt like every week was a new location. Fortunately, out of all of the uncertainty came incredible opportunities, including this one in Orange County. We are forging our own path and I couldn’t be more grateful to be back on course working towards fulfilling my dreams in a free country, where I will feel proud and blessed to continue my career,”, says Andrea Laššáková.
  
  Kyiv-born 24-year-old Vsevolod Maevsky likes to describe himself not only as Ukrainian, but as a “citizen of the whole world.” Maevsky’s relationship with dance began at the age of 5 with ballroom dancing. A few years later, he became the junior ballroom dancing champion of Ukraine. However, at the instigation of his mother, Maevsky began to study ballet and at the age of 12 was spotted by V. V. Pryanichnikov of the then Kyiv State Choreographic School, which led to a year in New York studying at the Ellison Ballet. In 2018 he was accepted into the Mariinsky Theatre company.

  

  Bolshoi Ballerina

  05

  Born in Santa Monica, California and raised in both California and Texas, Joy Womack trained with the Westside Ballet and Kirov Academy in Washington DC. Her prestigious training pointed her towards a career in Russia. Eventually, this would lead to her accomplishment as the first female ballerina to graduate with a Red Diploma from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Furthermore, she was the second American woman ever to sign a contract with the Bolshoi Company. In 2012, Womack joined the Bolshoi,then worked as the principal ballerina with the Kremlin Ballet for several years, while also competing and subsequently winning medals in international ballet competitions. Subsequently, she was a principal ballerina at the Universal Ballet in Seoul, Korea before returning to dance in Moscow, Russia. She loved Russian culture and the opportunities for her art there.
  
  During the pandemic, Womack took an offer to be an assistant to the director and prima ballerina of the Astrakhan Ballet, where she was based before the war. When Ukraine was invaded, she was on a film set in Poland, where a biopic co-starring Diane Krueger based on Womack’s life was being filmed. As a result, she was unable to return to Russia. She felt a deep sense of grief: not only did she have to leave her possessions and life in Russia behind, but it was also the end of her hopes and dreams for the future. She was not prepared to have to start over professionally and imagine a new future without Russia.

  

  Brazilian Bolshoi dancer

  06

  Born in Cabo Frio, Brazil, David began his dance studies at the Regina and Ofelia Corvello Ballet School in 2007. After the Youth America Grand Prix competition in New York, David was invited to attend the Annual Bolshoi Ballet Academy Summer Intensive in Connecticut in 2010. At the age of 12, he left Brazil full time to enter the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet Academy. He has lived in Russia almost entirely since. While still a student, he performed in Harlequinade, Nacho Duato’s L’amorosso, and danced the Grand Pas Classique (music by Daniel Auber choreography by Victor Gzovsky). In 2014, David performed as Colas in La Fille Mal Gardée on the stage of the Bolshoi and participated in the Academy’s tour of Italy. At his graduation concert he danced the pas de deux from Don Quixote.
  
  few days after his rapid exit from Russia, Motta Soares announced on his Instagram account that he had quit the Bolshoi, “the place I called home for many years. I cannot act like nothing is happening,” he wrote, adding that his heart is with his many friends and their families from Ukraine.

  

  Georgian Ballerina's Journey

  07

  Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Lizi Avsajanishvili grew up in the Georgian countryside—a long way from St. Petersburg and an even longer way from Orange County. Avsajanishvili’s journey from the Caucasian mountains has won her several international ballet competitions, including the Rudolph Nureyev Young Talent award at the International Ballet Festival in Ufa.She has also worked with the British prima ballerina Maina Gielgud in Suite en Blanc, with the extraordinary French ballerina Dominique Khalfouni, and has played Princess Masha in The Nutcracker at age 16—just three years ago. Each of these accomplishments were via the renowned Vaganova Ballet Academy, where she was laureate of Vaganova-Prix ballet competition.
  
  She says, “I am here now for peace and freedom. I could never imagine that in the 21st century war could again be a reason for such chaos and such hard life decisions. This opportunity at Segerstrom Center means, first of all, being able to share the stage again with my beloved friends and colleagues after a long time apart—it means a lot. Hope is the one thing that can help us get through the darkest of times. I want to keep glowing, exploring new things in the safe, peaceful world the Center represents.”

  

  Multitalented Dancers

  08

  Christine Shevchenko, principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), was born in Odessa, Ukraine to a gymnast father and dancer/actor mother. At the age of four, she was chosen to train in rhythmic gymnastics and ballet at an Olympic School. At the age of seven, she immigrated to the US and trained at Pennsylvania’s Rock School for Dance Education for nine years. Christine danced the children’s lead in The Pennsylvania Ballet’s The Nutcracker for three years, and was featured in the NBC special Degas and The Dance. In 2002, she was invited to perform with International Ballet Theatre Company’s “Stars of Kirov, Bolshoi and Ukrainian Ballet” in Annapolis, Maryland.
  
  As a small boy growing up in Yorkshire, Northern England, Xander Parish wanted to be a cricketer. A chance trip to see his 8-year-old sister Demelza dance whetted his appetite for classical ballet.He asked, Billy-Elliot-like, if he could join her class. Within a few years he found himself at the Royal Ballet’s prestigious Lower School at White Lodge in London, a year ahead of Demelza. “I remember it was my father who said it had to be my choice—cricket or ballet—and it was my choice to head off to boarding school in Richmond Park with the Royal Ballet School.”

  

  Multicultural Dancer

  09

  Part American, part Russian, Veronika Selivanova’s training included the Minsk Choreographic College and the renowned Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, where she was in the class of Maria Gribanova. Selivanova has also been part of the international trainee program of the San Francisco Ballet School from 2013 to 2015, under the direction of Patrick Armand. Selivanova joined the Norwegian National Ballet in 2022.
  
  “I was on tour in Moscow when the war came. I remember the day very well, and we were all very down and scared and confused. We didn’t know what to do, but we went on anyway. I cried on stage. I left Russia a week later—it was very hard to concentrate on anything else. It was just something we had to do. My husband is Russian—only Russian—and I had had notification from the U.S. embassy to leave. We got out to Norway, via Uzbekistan."

  

  Russian Ballet Evolution

  10

  Although this high-water mark of Russian “Romantic” or “Imperial” ballet is remembered for its enduring classics, from Swan Lake to The Nutcracker, from Sleeping Beauty to Don Quixote, in truth a number of these works were re-invented and re-choreographed in even more statedly Russian style in the closing years of Russia’s imperial regime. In 1900, choreographer Alexander Gorsky was appointed as master at the Bolshoi, and he set about codifying this newfound signature style for the company and for Russian ballet. Although it is the revolution that is often credited with pushing Russian dance back onto an international stage, the migration of Russian style and Russian stars had been happening before.

  

  Resilience Of
  Russian Ballet

  11

  It might seem bizarre that Russian ballet survived the revolution at all, continuing into a regime that sought to question much that had been considered elitist. But Russian ballet did more than survive—it flourished. By the early 20th century, it had largely surpassed its origins as a court art form to become an emblem of the national spirit: proud, soulful, fiery, intense. If art is our appreciation of the sensual moment with an awareness of eternity and death, then ballet’s interplay of pain and perfection resonated with the Russian peoples’ calamitous 20th century. But the threat to the freedom of the ballet—represented by the revolution and, later, the purges and repressions—sparked the emigration of many highly skilled ballet personnel, just as is happening again today, a century later.

[Bella Bible edited this piece]