Milena sidorova biography of donald

“I seldom create classical ballets. And the music I choose can be rather discordant, as well. My work has to be a bit quirky: distinctive and refreshing. I develop my own choreographic idiom with surprising movements and unusual coordination. I like to refine that idiom with the dancers, so that you can see what works for them in practice.

Over the past year, ballet has become more accessible than ever. You can find countless dance films on YouTube with top-class ballet and leading dancers. It’s fantastic that this lets us reach a new audience that never had much affinity with ballet before, but who might now want to have the ‘real’ experience in the theatre.

The biggest compliment I got for my dance film Rose was, “I’ve never been to a ballet before, but I watched your piece four times.” That’s my goal: to create work that’s a hit with both ballet connoisseurs and people who are discovering dance.”

Author: Rosalie Overing

During her 17-year dance career with Dutch National Ballet, the Ukrainian-Dutch Milena Sidorova already created more than 20 choreographies, part of which in the position of Young Creative Associate with the company. Having recently decided to continue as a full-time choreographer, she now embraces the task of opening the 2022/2023 season with her latest ballet Regnum, set to Mozart’s Symphony No. 25.

What story do you want to tell with Regnum?

“Regnum is about power; about powerful and powerless people, and everyone in between. And particularly about the pursuit of means that can help you gain power. The ballet has different storylines related to these themes. In various combinations – solos, duets, trios and groups – the 22 dancers embody the characters and relationships within these stories. Some storylines are more obvious than others, and they don’t all have to be followed by the audience. For me, the main thing is that viewers get caught up in the work and enjoy it.”

Before becoming a full-time choreographer, you’d already been dancing with Dutch National Ballet for a long time. What’s it like now, standing at the front of the studio and working with your former fellow dancers?

“I’ve worked with most of the dancers from the company before in my role as a choreographer – after Reset (September 2020 – ed.), Regnum is my second work for the regular programme of the main company – and I’m really enjoying it. Everyone’s hugely talented and I think it’s actually an advantage to have already worked as a dancer with many of them. It means I know them well; exactly where their strengths lie and how to bring out the best in them. However, Regnum is my first work with a full orchestra and custom-made sets, and, with 22 dancers per cast, the group is bigger this time. With two full casts and a partial third cast, it means there are sometimes nearly fifty people in the studio at once. That was something I had to get use

How did you come up with this choreography?

As a kid, I really loved spiders and I used to observe them a lot. They had this particular way of moving and were still very gracious creatures, although a bit weird. When I studied ballet professionally, I once tried to imitate the movements of a spider in the living room, which made my mother laugh a lot. She said: “Hey, why don’t you make that into a dance?”

And that’s how “The Spider” was born. I performed it for the first time about two months later.

Where did you perform it?

I started to compete in international ballet competitions at the age of 13. During these competitions, participants usually had to perform several short contemporary solos. I danced “The Spider” at ballet competitions in Moscow, Kiev, Reus (Spain), Lausanne and London.

After my education at the Royal Ballet School in London, I’ve joined the Dutch National Ballet and have danced many choreographies around the globe — but not “The Spider”.

Is it difficult to dance “The Spider”?

Yes. Not necessarily because it requires advanced technical skills, but the spider pose requires a certain flexibility in your hips and lower back that even most professional dancers do not possess.

The first pose and the subsequent walk are particularly demanding.

Have other dancers ever performed it?

I recently coached a talented young Dutch dancer who performed it in a ballet competition in France — and she ended up winning 2nd prize. She also danced it on Japanese television programme ‘ItteQ! Let’s challenge the world’ (april 2018) which was watched by 20 million people.

During the past years, I have also noticed or have been notified that hundreds of people around the globe have performed it without my prior permission, which is not allowed. For this reason, I unfortunately can’t provide more detailed information on

Can you explain how you started with dance?

'To be honest, I don't remember myself not being in dance. I started when I was 3 years old. I do have flashbacks of being on stage about that time in Kiev, Ukraine. When I was 7 years old, I went to the ballet academy and at the age of 9 I joined the Kiev Choreographic Institute - but choreographic is just a name and means the State Ballet School.’

‘When I was 12 or 13, I started to do ballet competitions. Choreography was a requirement and in a way it was a neccesity to have something original, so I made my own solo's. The first one was a spider: I used to be obsessed with spiders as a child. The movement material was succesful and I have been using it up until the Prix de Lausanne and the Moscow International Competition. With a scholarship that I won in 2002 at the Prix de Lausanne I went to the Royal Ballet School. After that I got my first contract here at the Dutch National Ballet.'

Why did you choose to go to the Royal Ballet School?

'Mainly because one of my teachers gave me a very positive advice about it. And also because Gailene Stock, the director of the Royal Ballet School, came up to me at the end of Prix de Lausanne and said she would be really happy if I came to study at the Royal Ballet School. When I went there it was quite difficult because I didn't speak any English and I had to take some private lessons. It was a wonderful time though: I was dancing the lead in Raymonda when the Royal Ballet School went on tour to New York and Japan before graduating from the Upper School with honours. I also had choreographic opportunities there, I could work with students of the school and actually won a Choreographic Development Award from the school.'

How has the Royal Ballet School influenced you?

'I liked the fact that the dancing was more intensive at the Royal Ballet School than in Kiev: more lessons, more rehearsals, it was more intense balletwise. In the beginning I w