If you’d like to follow my career as a professional classical dancer, go over to my Instagram page here.  Read on to find out more about my life at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy …

March 25th 2016 saw the completion of my first final year state exam in acting.  Always a good one to begin the run of exams with, the state acting exam consist of various pieces of repertoire being performed that enable us to show our range and abilities in the very specific art of acting in classical (and perhaps, not-so-classical) dance.

After much deliberation, I settled on two solos that I thought best portray me as a multi-faceted performer: the scene from John Neumeier’s the Little Mermaid in which the eponymous mermaid comes to terms with her new legs and, from Yacobson’s Spartacus, the scene in which his wife, Phrygia, discovers his dead body – see the performances on the YouTube links below:

In addition, the acting exam began and ended poignantly with the whole class reacting to the incredibly moving music of Miyazaki’s animation, Spirited Away.  As a last touching note, Tamilla Vladimirovna wanted us to write personal messages on a scroll so that she would have a memento of the three years we spent working together.

I was awarded a five and received notable recognition for my Phrygia piece; the members of the committee, which included Marina Konstantina Leonova, the Rector of the Academy, cried!  It was a wonderful start to the exam season and yet also a rather sad one as it was our last ever acting class with Tamilla at the Academy!

See photos from my character exam here.

See photos from my duet exam here.

See photos from my ballet exam here.