Mariinsky Ballet

The Mariinsky Ballet, founded in the eighteenth century and historically known as the Imperial Russian Ballet (and as the Kirov in the Soviet era), is the company on whose stage the classical repertoire was born. It was here that Marius Petipa choreographed "The Sleeping Beauty", "Swan Lake" and "La Bayadère", works that remain the cornerstones of ballet worldwide. Resident at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg — and now also the adjacent Mariinsky II — the company is celebrated for the purity, refinement and musicality of its dancing, the product of the Vaganova Academy’s exacting tradition. Under Valery Gergiev’s artistic leadership the wider Mariinsky has become one of the most prolific performing institutions in the world, with the ballet preserving the authentic texts of the great nineteenth-century classics while nurturing new generations of virtuoso dancers.