The Bolshoi Ballet

Big, Large, Great, Grand – translated, that is what Bolshoi means in English! And the

Bolshoi Ballet is all of those things.

Originally known as The Petrovsky Ballet, it first started in 1776 and performed at the

Petrovsky Theatre in Moscow. Dancers were employed from a dance school that operated

within an orphanage, where students were trained in dance, music and singing.

In 1805 the Petrovsky Theatre was destroyed in a fire and in 1825, the new Bolshoi Theatre

was built on the same site, taking over the Petrovsky Ballet Company and changing its name to The Bolshoi Ballet.

At first, it struggled to compete with the Imperial Russian Ballet until the year 1900, when a

new Ballet Master, Alexander Gorsky, was appointed to run the Company. He began to

create and develop the Company’s own unique identity and was responsible for restaging

some ballets, choreographed by Marius Petipa, one of the most famous Ballet Masters of all

time, including Don Quixote, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

Although Russia’s most famous ballerina, Anna Pavlova was a principal artist with the

Imperial Russian Ballet, she performed with the Bolshoi Ballet on a few occasions.

With approximately 220 dancers, the Bolshoi Ballet is today known as the largest ballet

Company in Russia and one of the oldest and most famous in the world.

Most of the dancers are graduates from the Bolshoi Balley Academy, which is also one of

the oldest ballet schools in the world. Their performance is based on an expressive,

dramatic, colourful and bold style.

In 2000 the Bolshoi Ballet opened its first and only Ballet and Contemporary Dance

Academy outside of Russia, in Brazil.

Their motto is “Life is better when you dance!” and that couldn’t be more true!