Nadja Saidakova

Choreographer

Надежда Сайдакова

Nadja Saidakova was born in Ishewsk (Russia). After her training at State Ballet Academy in Perm she started her dancing career at the Moscow Classical Ballet. In 1991 she settled to Germany, where she was invited by Heinz Spoerli to join the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Duesseldorf as Principal Dancer. Since 1995 she is Principal Dancer with the ballet company of Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, since 2004 with Staatsballett Berlin, when this company was founded under Artistic Director Vladimir Malakhov.

She danced a huge number of the classical leading parts and dramatic roles, she also feels at home in the neoclassical and contemporary repertoire, she inspired many choreographers to create on her personal skills. She danced in ballets by Rudolf NureyevMaurice BéjartPatrice BartPierre Lacotte, John CrankoBoris Eifman or Vladimir Malakhov, in choreographies by Peter MartinsUwe ScholzNacho DuatoChristian SpuckItzik Galili or William Forsythe. She still is performing in almost the entire repertoire of Staatsballett Berlin as Principal Dancer.

She is prominently represented in other projects, such as the Russian dance film “Hamlet” (together with Vladimir Malakhov) or one of the projects by Gert Weigelt, the famous German dance photographer. As “female dancer of the year” she was acclaimed in 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2013 by the German dance magazine “tanz”. Most recently the magazine “dance for you” pointed on Nadja Saidakova’s interpretation of Brünnhilde in Béjart’s “Ring um den Ring” and Tatyana in Cranko’s “Onegin” as the “Outstanding Female Performance” of the season 2012/2013.

Since 2005 Nadja Saidakova has been creating her own choreographies. “Just a little bit …”, (2005) and “Wake it” (2007) were performed within the format of “Shut up and dance!” of Staatsballett Berlin. In 2009 the Berliner Festspiele/spielzeit’europa commissioned her with a creation “Egopoint”. This choreography was developed with Luke Slater, a well-known musician from Berghain Berlin, a club which is active in the field of ambitious electronical music. Her latest work “Boson” she created for the triple bill “Masse”, a cooperational project of Staatsballett Berlin and Berghain Berlin, which was performed within a Berlin industrial architecture space.