Anastasia Volochkova

Anastasia Yurievna Volochkova ( _ru. Анастасия Юрьевна Волочкова) is a Russian prima ballerina. She was born in Leningrad in 1976 and was trained in the Vaganova Ballet Academy by Natalia Dudinskaya, a famous pupil of Agrippina Vaganova. She then danced with the Mariinsky Ballet for four years and won the Serge Lifar Competition in Kiev in 1996.

In 1998, her influential patrons had her transferred to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, which she was forced to leave in 2000, although she returned a year later. In 2001 she worked with Derek Dean and with Alberto Alonso in the English National Ballet. The following year, she was awarded the Prix Benois de la Danse.

In September 2003 Volochkova was fired by the Bolshoi administration amid accusations that she had become too fat and that male dancers had refused to work with her because of her height and weight, allegations which she emphatically denied. After a media storm subsided, she was invited by Yuri Grigorovich to work as a prima ballerina in a theatre he runs in Krasnodar. She also appeared in Russian TV series as an actress.

External links

* [http://www.volochkova.ru Official website]
* [http://www.ballerinagallery.com/volochko.htm The Ballerina Gallery - Anastasia Volochkova]