Anastasia Yatsenko

“The new dance looks to the future and draws on the best traditions of the past and the powerful possibilities of the present.”

Honored Artist of Russia

Ballerina, Rehearsal Director, PhD of Pedagogical Sciences, Contemporary Dance Curator

Anastasia Yatsenko is a unique specialist in the field of ballet and contemporary dance.

She began her performing career as a graduate of Sofia Nikolaevna Golovkina class, the famous reformer leader of The Bolshoi Ballet Academy. Having served at the Bolshoi Theater of Russia for more than twenty years (from 1991 to 2013), Anastasia went through all the steps of the hierarchy of the ballet troupe: first she danced in the corps de ballet, then she performed solo, leading and, finally, ballerina parts. Later she was a rehearsal director of the ballet troupe (from 2013 to 2016).

At the same time, the period of Anastasia’s performance coincided with a unique period in the life of the Bolshoi Theater as a whole. It was at this moment that the theater began to open up to new choreographers and modern foreign trends. Anastasia managed to get in touch with all the iconic choreographers, whose works were transferred to the stage of the Bolshoi Theater or were specially staged. Among them are such choreographers as Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor, Yuri Posokhov.

An important part of the repertoire can be called the works of George Balanchine, which were transferred to the main Russian stage with the support of the George Balanchine Foundation. Anastasia collaborated with Jean-Christophe Maillot, Carolyn Carlson, Nacho Duato and Mauro Bigonzetti within the framework of entrepreneurial projects.

Anastasia took part in all projects both as a dancer and as an assistant of choreographers and a rehearsal director, thoroughly delving into the nuances of choreography, composition, quality of performance and staging process.

Participation in the Context. Diana Vishneva Contemporary Dance Festival as curator of the Russian program and program director of the festival (from 2013 to 2021) became a important chapter of Anastasia’s career. Since the founding of the festival, Anastasia has been reviewing and selecting choreographic works both within the framework of the Young Choreographers Contest and outside it. This process allowed her not only to keep abreast of the main trends in the development of contemporary dance in Russia, but also to identify the most promising directions.

Offering the works of contestants and festival participants to the jury and spectators, Anastasia formed a complete picture of Russian dance art: from neoclassical dance and modern dance to contemporary and experimental genres. Having practically determined the pool of choreographers who are actively working in the professional field today, Anastasia created an operating platform for the development of dance and the prospects for its release to a qualitatively new level.

Also, as a teacher and curator of modern choreography, she collaborated with the Central Ballet School (Moscow), NKBS (Great Britain), Miaki Ballet Academy (Japan), and the Eglevsky Ballet Summer School (USA).

As a dancer and teacher-repetiteur of the Bolshoi Theater and as a curator of a major choreographic competition and festival, Anastasia Yatsenko represents the entire landscape of world contemporary dance art and has the performing and organizational tools to create a new generation theater. This new dance looks to the future and draws on the best traditions of the past and the powerful possibilities of the present.

Titles and prizes:

Honored Artist of the Russian Federation (2002)

laureate of the 1st degree of the Arabesque Open Russian Ballet Competition in Perm (1996)

laureate of the II degree of the Maya International Ballet Competition in St. Petersburg (1996)

Education:

The Bolshoi Ballet Academy (BA ― 1991, Master Program ― 1995), Moscow State University of Culture and Arts (2002; currently ― Moscow State Institute of Culture), PhD of Pedagogical Sciences