Alexey Miroshnichenko

He is one of Russia’s leading and most highly sought-after choreographers, whose style has always been distinguished by his bold approach and easily identifiable signature. “Ballet can express things you can’t communicate in words,” he repeats endlessly, continuing to search for new forms and means of expressing the most subtle emotions. In his ability to convey in insightful movement that which slips through the strictures of language, he is unmatched.

On graduating from the Vaganova Russian Ballet Academy, he was immediately accepted into the Mariinsky Theatre’s ballet company, and at the age of twenty-three, he made his debut as a choreographer with a staging of Stravinsky’s ballet Svadebka. Convinced that this was his calling, he graduated from the Academy’s choreography department in 2002 and then taught there for a few years.

Miroshnichenko is always trying to find something new – either new music for ballet experiments or new ideas in classic works. Thus, in 2007, he staged two ballets to contemporary scores: Ring, to music by the Russian alternative hip-hop group 2H Company, and Like an Old Organ-Grinder to music by Leonid Desyatnikov. In 2015, he transformed Shostakovich’s forgotten suite Hypothetically Murdered, reminding us that one of the most serious and tragic composers of the twentieth century was also a huge jazz fan. Then, in 2016, he completely reimagined Prokofiev’s Cinderella, transferring the setting of the ballet to the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

Miroshnichenko has worked with the Bolshoi Theatre and the Novosibirsk Theatre of Opera and Ballet, and his ballet The Lady With the Little Dog was performed by New York City Ballet. He has choreographed dances for Valery Fokin’s production of The Marriage at St. Petersburg’s Alexandrinksy Theatre and for Pavel Sanayev’s film Kilometer Zero.

Alexey considers his ”romance” with Perm Ballet (from 2009 to 2020, he was the theatre’s principal choreographer and came back to his post in 2023) to have been destined: “It’s probably fate. From my first years at the Vaganova Academy, I was always hearing the word “Perm”. Our veterans remembered the years of evacuation, our teachers regularly visited Perm College to give masterclasses, and a large number of the Perm school’s graduates of different generations were dancing at the Mariinsky Theatre.” When it came to decide, Miroshnichenko’s entire professional and artistic circle – Makhar Baziyev, Leonid Desyatnikov, Polina Osetinskaya, Pavel Gershenzon, and Alexey Goribol among them – were convinced: of course someone from the Mariinsky should go to Perm Ballet, its sister theatre.

Thanks to this brilliant artistic partnership, which lasted for over a decade, not only did Perm Ballet develop its mastery, it also achieved international recognition. Now, it is a national ballet brand that attracts dance-lovers from all over the world. Company and choreographer shared numerous successes and innovations that have inarguably influenced the development of Russian musical theatre as a whole.