Cover Elizaveta Kokoreva, the Bolshoi Ballet’s youngest principal dancer, dancing the part of The Sleeping Beauty (Photo: courtesy of Elena Fetisova and Bolshoi Theatre)
Elizaveta Kokoreva, the Bolshoi Ballet’s youngest principal dancer, dancing the part of The Sleeping Beauty (Photo: courtesy of Elena Fetisova and Bolshoi Theatre)
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Elizaveta Kokoreva became the youngest prima ballerina at the legendary Bolshoi Theatre at 22. Making her Hong Kong debut this week at ‘The Sleeping Beauty’, she reveals what it takes to climb the ranks at one of the world’s toughest ballet companies, and how Asia influences her practice
The average age of principal dancers at the Bolshoi Ballet is above 30. But Elizaveta Kokoreva did what her predecessors couldn’t—she was elevated to the top tier of the legendary Russian ballet company, widely known to be one of the world’s best, at the tender age of 22.
Now 25 years old, Kokoreva arrives in Hong Kong this week to step into the iconic, ethereal role of Princess Aurora in the Hong Kong Ballet’s production of The Sleeping Beauty. This performance features a new choreographic edition by the celebrated dancer and choreographer Vladimir Malakhov, who presents a fresh, elegant, and lively vision of Princess Aurora.
For Kokoreva, the brilliance of the role lies in the subtle nuances of performance that reveal the princess’s true spirit. “She shows her real personality through the smallest details,” Kokoreva says. “The way she touches the other characters with her hand, the way she turns her head to look at them, at the other dancers on the stage, or directly at the audience—it is incredibly telling. I’ve never danced this version before. But that is the vitality and magic I want to bring to the stage.”
Above Elizaveta Kokoreva, the Bolshoi Ballet’s youngest principal dancer, dancing the part of The Sleeping Beauty (Photo: courtesy of Elena Fetisova and Bolshoi Theatre)
Elizaveta Kokoreva, the Bolshoi Ballet’s youngest principal dancer, dancing the part of The Sleeping Beauty (Photo: courtesy of Elena Fetisova and Bolshoi Theatre)
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One of the things the principal dancer says has been a “dream come true” for her over the past three years is having the chance to dance in different countries with different teachers, partners, and dancers. Three months ago, she was invited by K-Ballet to dance the lead role of Juliet alongside Ren Kuriyama as Romeo in Tetsuya Kumakawa’s production of Romeo and Juliet at the Bunkamura Orchard Hall in Tokyo. “Experiences like this are very good for my exposure [to different styles of expression],” she says.
Kokoreva is deeply accustomed to the Bolshoi's training and style. Her ballet teachers, whom she describes as being “like a mother”, know each student’s strengths and weaknesses so well that postures and bodily movements can be altered from the original choreography to best showcase the dancer's figure or the visual outcome of a scene. “That gives you some leeway, whereas outside Russia, the teachers in the companies I worked with adhere very strictly to the choreography that has been set. That, to me, adds a very interesting dimension to my ballet experience.”
Above Elizaveta Kokoreva, the Bolshoi Ballet’s youngest principal dancer, who has her Hong Kong debut this week in the Hong Kong Ballet’s ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ (Photo: courtesy of Darian Volkova)
Elizaveta Kokoreva, the Bolshoi Ballet’s youngest principal dancer, who has her Hong Kong debut this week in the Hong Kong Ballet’s ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ (Photo: courtesy of Darian Volkova)
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When Tatler met Kokoreva in the rehearsal room at the Cultural Centre the day before her city debut on June 2, she was eager to get to know the Hong Kong Ballet’s style. On her grueling 15-hour evening flight to Hong Kong—which she boarded only a few hours after performing a Cinderella matinee at the Bolshoi—she studied screen recordings of the Hong Kong Ballet principal dancer Ye Feifei’s performance, noting the specific choreographic variations and structural adjustments required for the new stage.
“The choreography has different accents, and the tempos are different,” says Kokoreva. “Overall, the pacing here is a bit slower than what I am accustomed to dancing in Russia. In Japan, everything was very warm and friendly. I don’t know what to expect here yet, but tomorrow I will meet the whole Hong Kong company. It makes me nervous because I know that the moment a visiting principal enters the room, all eyes are on you, and people begin evaluating you from the very first second.”
Read more: New York City Ballet’s first Chinese principal dancer on defying racial and gender stereotypes
Above Elizaveta Kokoreva, who is in Hong Kong for ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ this week, in ‘Spartacus’ (Photo: courtesy of Batyr Annadurdiev and Damir Yousupov)
Elizaveta Kokoreva, who is in Hong Kong for ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ this week, in ‘Spartacus’ (Photo: courtesy of Batyr Annadurdiev and Damir Yousupov)
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That certainly adds to the stress, especially when Kokoreva is already her own worst critic. “I’ve always been very ambitious. In every part I’ve danced, I always do my absolute best,” she says. As a young graduate, she treated every moment on stage as an audition, even when relegated to mass crowd scenes or small corps de ballet parts. Today, as a principal dancer, she doesn’t stop focusing after a full day of classes, rehearsals, and performances, even after the stage lights go off. “When I’m going home, I think a lot about my role, what I want to show, and what I could have added to my performance.”
She also attributes her meteoric rise to the Bolshoi’s demanding artistic director, Makhar Vaziev. “We have an interesting relationship—a total love-hate relationship,” she says with a chuckle. “He is the primary cause of my emotional swings. He has put me on the verge of tears several times with his sharp critiques to my face, even though other dancers tell me that he speaks very highly of me behind my back. He constantly tests me, but he is the reason I push myself toward relentless self-analysis. He reinforced my innate drive to ensure every single performance is unique, outstanding, and a better version of myself than the day before.”
Above Elizaveta Kokoreva, who is in Hong Kong for ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ this week, performing in ‘Don Quixote’ (Photo: courtesy of Batyr Annadurdiev and Damir Yousupov)
Elizaveta Kokoreva, who is in Hong Kong for ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ this week, performing in ‘Don Quixote’ (Photo: courtesy of Batyr Annadurdiev and Damir Yousupov)
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It is Kokoreva’s discipline, unrelenting work ethic and fierce sense of professional ambition that ultimately earned the young dancer her place as a principal in 2023. When Kokoreva received the news of her promotion, however, her initial reaction was not pure celebration, but fear. “Of course I was happy, but it did not feel like that at first because it brought a huge amount of responsibility. Typically, ballerinas reach this rank after the age of 30, once they have spent a decade in the company and danced the entire repertoire. I had performed a lot of leading roles by that point, but I still felt too young for the position. It was only when I saw the tears of joy in my teachers’ eyes that I finally believed it was real.”
Being a principal dancer is no bed of roses. A day in the life of a Bolshoi principal is an exhausting test of physical and mental endurance. Kokoreva’s schedule begins at 11am with company class, followed by non-stop rehearsals from 12 noon onward. Depending on the programming block, she must prepare up to three massive, technically distinct ballets simultaneously. “I remember one week where I had to perform Spartacus, Don Quixote and The Queen of Spades all within a few days,” she says. “They require entirely different technical styles. You have an hour of solo rehearsal, then an hour of partner work, and you must rehearse them every day, often without a day off.”
Above Elizaveta Kokoreva in ‘The Nutcracker’ (Photo: courtesy of Batyr Annadurdiev and Damir Yousupov)
Elizaveta Kokoreva in ‘The Nutcracker’ (Photo: courtesy of Batyr Annadurdiev and Damir Yousupov)
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What keeps her going is her genuine love for the art of ballet, which traces back to her early childhood. The daughter of the artistic director of Russian National Star Ballet in Moscow, Kokoreva grew up in the theatre, captivated by how dancers communicated profound stories without speaking. “As a child, I often suffered from fevers. My father had to bring me along to work because I couldn’t go to school. That accidentally planted my love for the theatre arts,” she says. She particularly remembers a vibrant performance of Don Quixote that cemented her decision to become a ballerina. Her father sent her to the Bolshoi Ballet Academy when she was 10, and the rest was history.
Having achieved the pinnacle of her profession at an age when most dancers are just starting out, Kokoreva’s future goals focus entirely on artistic expansion. “[For now,] I don’t have any desire to become an artistic director or transition into management,” she says. “My dream is to keep dancing, to develop, and to learn foreign techniques by working with new companies, new teachers and new partners around the world.”
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
