A look at two great ballerinas of the Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet, Maya Plisetskaya and Natalia Osipova.

GISELLE – Act II pas de deux with NATALIA OSIPOVA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3o-1eSdbQ)

“HABANERA – CARMEN SUITE” – historical footage (1960’s) with MAYA PLISETSKAYA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvKHERE3eI4&t=2s)

Natalia Osipova comes to us as the legacy holder of greats such as Plisetskaya, who is part of Osipova’s direct lineage. Plisetskaya has in large part laid down the ground for modern generation dancers such as Osipova, who use it as a foundation for their mental and physical nourishment, as well as their spiritual compass.

Figures like Plisetskaya are a central reference point for top ballet dancers of today, who usually refer to these Masters with great reverence, deeply holding onto the principles set down by these legends that came before them in navigating their professional and personal life.

Osipova is a superb athlete who started her career early on as a gymnast and has raised the bar for ballet artists on a physical level, while being able to absorb a substantial depth of knowledge of her craft through her predecessors. Indeed, this makes her an exceptional artist.

The incomparable Plisetskaya is a more complex mind-structure, who sought to understand deeply-rooted questions in the arena of social, political and humanitarian injustice, grappling with the cruelty she and her family experienced first hand in the Soviet war-time and communist era.

The two figures work on, and thereby dance from, varying planes of consciousness. And yet, they are intricately connected, as one energy is the outgrowth of another.

Needless to say, both bestow us with uniquely distinct contributions.

Written by Elena Alexandra
author of the ElitePalate.com