Sergei Filin
Sergei Filin was born in Moscow 27 October 1970. Prior to his professional training at the Moscow Choreographic Academy, he had been dancing in the children's ensemble V. Loktev in his hometown since he was seven. At the Academy Filin studied under Natalia Yashenkova and Alexander Prokofiev. Upon graduation in 1988 he joined the Bolshoi Ballet as a soloist and was soon promoted to principal (1990).
At the Bolshoi Filin works mainly under the guidance of Nikolay Fadeyechev, but has also been coached by Marina Semyonova and Nikolai Simachev.
Sergei Filin quickly developed into one of the most prominent male dancers of the Bolshoi Ballet of the 1990's.
A classique dancer by physique and cast in a much softer mould than his famous predecessors at the Bolshoi, Filin can be seen in virtually the whole gamut of the company's repertoire. Graceful of presence and bearing for the princely roles, it is nonetheless in demi-caractère parts that Filin excels. His performances in the romantic ballets La Sylphide, Giselle and in the recent reconstruction by Pierre Lacotte of Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter may count among the best in this company. Filin's performance as Lord Wilson/Taor in The Pharaoh's Daughter has been preserved on film and is now available on DVD (with Svetlana Zakharova and Maria Alexandrova).
Sergei Filin is a recipient of the Benois de la Danse in 1994 for his performance of Prince Désiré in Yuri
Grigorovich's staging of The Sleeping Beauty. The following year he was proclaimed 'Best dancer of the year' by the Italian magazine "La Danza". In 2001 he received the "Soul of the Dance" award from the magazine "Balet" (Moscow).
His creation of the Classical Dancer in Alexei Ratmansky's The Bright Stream in 2003 was awarded with the Golden Mask 2004. Filin is a People's Artist of Russia since 2001.
At the Bolshoi Sergei Filin partnered Nina Ananiashvili, Maria Alexandrova, Anna Antonicheva, Svetlana Lunkina, Galina Stepanenko, and Svetlana Zakharova. He has appeared as a guest artist with various companies around the world, English National Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Hungarian National Ballet, among others.
Marc Haegeman
His repertoire includes:
- Benedikt in Love for Love (Boccadoro) (1989)
- Paris and Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (Grigorovich) (1991)
- Count Cherry in Cipollino (Maiorov) (1992)
- Albrecht in Giselle (Perrot, Coralli, Petipa, staged by Grigorovich) (1993)
- The Prince in The Nutcracker (Grigorovich) (1993)
- Prince Désiré, Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa, staged by Grigorovich) (1993)
- Solor in La Bayadère (Petipa, Chabukiani, Ponomarev, staged by Grigorovich) (1994)
- James (cr Bolshoi) in La Sylphide (Bournonville, staged by von Rosen) (1994)
- Conrad in Le Corsaire (Sergeyev after Petipa, staged by Grigorovich) (1995)
- Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (Lavrovsky) (1995)
- Tom in The Last Tango (Gordeyev) (1996)
- Albrecht (cr) in Giselle (Perrot, Coralli, Petipa, staged by Vasiliev) (1997)
- Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake (Petipa/Ivanov, staged by Vasiliev) (1997)
- Jean de Brienne in Raymonda (Petipa, staged by Grigorovich) (1997)
- soloist in Charms of Mannerism (Ratmansky) (1997)
- soloist in Capriccio (Ratmansky) (1997)
- soloist in Mozartiana (Balanchine) (1998)
- soloist (cr) in Dreams About Japan (Ratmansky) (1998)
- The teacher in The Lesson (Flindt) (1998)
- Basilio in Don Quixote (1999) (Petipa, Gorsky, staged by Fadeyechev) (1999)
- soloist in 1st movt of Symphony in C (Balanchine) (1999)
- soloist in Green (Welch) (2000)
- Lord Wilson/Taor (cr) in La Fille du Pharaon (Lacotte after Petipa) (2000)
- soloist in Opus X (Welch) (2001)
- Colas in La Fille mal gardée (Ashton) (2003)
- Classical dancer (cr) in The Bright Stream (Ratmansky) (2003)
- Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (Balanchine) (2004)
- Khanan in Leah (Ratmansky) (2004)
A biography and additional information on Sergei Filin (in Russian) can be found in
THE SMALL BALLET ENCYCLOPEDIA
Copyright © 2002-2005
Text and photos of Sergei Filin Copyright © 2002-2005 Marc Haegeman. All rights reserved.