POLINA SEMIONOVA

Polina Semionova is a principal guest of the Staatsballett Berlin (Berlin State Ballet), Germany

Polina Semionova was born on September 13, 1984, and grew up in Moscow.  As a child, she was engaged in figure skating in the CSKA sports club, danced at the State Radio and Television Ensemble, after which she entered Moscow State Academy of Choreography, where she attended the same class with  her brother Dmitry Semionov , who upon graduation became the soloist of the Mariinsky Theater and later of Dresden’s Semperoper and Dortmund Ballet.

While in the 2nd year of studies, Polina took part in the Moscow International Ballet Competition 2001 where she won the 1st Prize and a gold medal in the junior category for her duet with Sergey Vasuchenko. After graduation she was also awarded the Pavlova Prize by the Miloserdie Foundation.  

Graduating summa cum laude in 2002 from Sofia Golovkina’s class , Semionova joined the Berlin State Ballet as a principal upon the invitation of its artistic director Vladimir Malakhov.

In 2011 she was a guest star at the American Ballet Theater and at the Teatro alla Scala (Milan).

In 2012 she became the principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater and at the Mikhailovsky Theater in Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

Since 2012 she has taught at the Berlin State Ballet school and in 2013 she was granted the professor’s title there.

Since 2017 she has been the principal dancer at the Berlin State Ballet.

Awards:

2002 - Junior Prize at the Nagoya (Japan) International Ballet Competition. First prize at the Contest of Students of Choreographic Schools Vaganova-Prix (Vaganova Academy of Russian ballet, St. Petersburg);

2004 — Prize of the Union of Berlin theater lovers DAPHNE-Preis;

2004 — Prize "Zukunft" (Future) awarded by the Association of German stage workers (der Kameradschaft deutscher Bühnenarbeiter) to young talented dancers and choreographers;

April 2005 — Prize of the German Critics Union Kritikerpreise;

2014 — Benois de la Danse prize (for the roles in ABT's "Partita Bach" by Twyla Tharp, "Theme with variations" by George Balanchine, "Sylphides" by Mikhail Fokin, and "Ninth Symphony" by Alexei Ratmansky)

Her main repertory includes roles in Swan Lake, La Bayadère , Don Quixote, Giselle, , The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Coppélia, The Nutcracker, Sylvia, Onegin, Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Carmen (choreographed by Roland Petit), One Thousand and One Nights, Jewels, Ballet Imperial, Apollon musagète, A Midsummer Night's Dream (choreographed by George Balanchine), Ring um den Ring (staged by Maurice Béjart), Herman Schmerman (staged by William Forsythe), Caravaggio, Five (aka Five Senses to the Music of Vivaldi)           (choreographed by Mauro Bigonzetti), Remansos, Archangel (staged by Nacho Duato), Return to a Strange Land (choreographed by Jiří Kylián), The Afternoon of a Faun (choreographed by Jerome Robbins), Peer Gynt (choreographed by Heinz Spoerli), Mozart, Schumann (choreographed by Uwe Scholz).

As a guest dancer, Polina Semionova takes part in performances of many theaters in the world, among which are Teatro alla Scala, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Stuttgarter Ballett, –the American Ballet Theater, the Bolshoi Theater, the Mariinsky Theater Ballet, the Mikhailovsky Theater, Semperoper Dresden, Opernhaus Zürich, Tokyo Ballet, and the English National Ballet.