Anastasia Volochkova Announces Surprise Visit

The Russian ballerina, and tabloid regular, Anastasia Volochkova has announced a summer visit to the London Coliseum.

Described as a “dramatic heart-stopping show”, Nerve features ten numbers which Volochkova says are based on her personal story. “My passion, my broken dreams, my regrets and my eternal hope. This performance is my art and my roles reveal the actual events in my life.”

The show includes several guest artists, including opera singers Vassily Efimov (Helikon Opera) and Natalia Borozdina (Novaya Opera), plus dancers Rinat Arifulin (from the Bolshoi Theatre) and the Kirov/Mariinsky soloist Yevgeny Ivanchenko. Music includes Tchaikovsky, Puccini and Purcell.

Last seen in London in 2003, Volochkova has attracted as much attention in the tabloids as she has in the arts pages. A romance with a Russian Oligarch, and marriage to a man who left her for a religious cult, have all been reported, events she says she has “transformed into artistic performance”.

Volochkova was born in St Petersburg in 1976. She attended the renowned Vaganova Academy and danced with the both the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet.

She began a solo career in the late 1990s, including guest appearances with English National Ballet in Derek Dean’s 2000 production of The Sleeping Beauty. Since 2004 Volochkova has been attached to the Yury Grigorovich Ballet and continues to tour her solo program which spans classical ballet to contemporary styles.

- by Sarah Frater

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