STARS GALA

The South Korean dancer Young Gyu Choi started dancing at the age of eight on his mother’s initiative. “I wasn’t immediately enthusiastic, but after a few lessons I stopped thinking about it and just went”, he says. At the age of ten, he was admitted to the ballet course at the Sun Hwa Arts School in Korea, and in 2006 he continued his training at the Tanz Akademie in Zurich, Switzerland.

Young danced with the Korean National Ballet and Universal Ballet Korea, both in Seoul. He entered the Dutch National Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in 2011. In 2013, he was promoted no less than twice: first to coryphée and later in the year to soloist. He then danced leading roles in Don Quixote and Cinderella, among others. On the first of January 2016, immediately after his debut as the prince in The Nutcracker and The Mouse King, he was promoted to principal.

Young also frequently performs as a guest principal dancer with leading international companies.

Young has received several awards.
2017, Alexandra Radius Award.
2010, Boston International Competition, 1st.
2010, Ballet Competition (Varna, Bulgaria), 1st.
2007, Youth America Grand Prix (New York City, United States), 1st.

Bakhtiar was born in the city of Saryozeke, Almaty region. He graduated from the Almaty Choreographic School named after A.V. Seleznev (2003-2011). From 2011 to 2013 - soloist of Astana Opera and Ballet Theatre. Since 2013 he had been a soloist of State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after Abay. Since 2015 he has been the principal soloist of Astana Opera.

Awards:
Prize-winner at the VII International Competition of Choreographic Schools of Siberia (Novosibirsk, 2008);
Diploma of the International KIBC Contest (South Korea, 2009);
Prize-winner at the International Contest of Ballet Artists "Arrow" (2010);
The holder of the scholarship of the First President of RK NA. Nazarbayev (2010-2011);
Laureate of the 1st prize of the International Festival of Creative Youth "Shabyt" (2012);
The winner of the II Prize of the International Ballet Competition "Grand Prix of Siberia" (Krasnoyarsk, 2014);
Grand Prix of the V International Ballet Competition in Istanbul (Turkey, July 8, 2016);
Laureate of the 1st Prize of the XIII International Dance Contest in Seoul (South Korea, August 10, 2016);
Grand Prix of the III International Ballet Competition in Astana (September 16, 2016);
Grand Prix of the International Competition of Ballet Dancers VKIBC (New York, USA, 2017);
Prize-winner at the XIII International Competition of Ballet and Choreographers in Moscow (Russia, 2017).

Repertoire:
Spartacus (Spartak A. Khachaturyan)
Benvolio ("Romeo and Juliet" by S. Prokofiev)
The Jester ("The Swan Lake" by P. Tchaikovsky)
Syrym ("Karagoz" G. Zhubanova)
Nutcracker-Prince (The Nutcracker by P. Tchaikovsky)
Nurali ("The Fountain of Bakhchisarai" by B. Asafyev)
Solor (La Bayadère by L. Minkus)
Quasimodo (Notre Dame de Paris)
Basil (Don Quixote by L. Minkus)
Lesko ("Manon" to the music of J. Massenet)

Yolanda Correa was born in Cuba and studied in the Vocational School of Art Holguín and in the Cuban State Ballet School Havana.

She has worked in several international ballet companies. From 2000 till 2010 she danced in the National Ballet of Cuba Havana, being Principal Dancer from 2005 on. In 2009 she danced with Víctor Ullate Ballet. From 2010 until 2018 she was Principal Dancer in the Norwegian National Ballet Oslo.

Since 2018 she is the Principal Dancer of the Staatsballett Berlin.

She has received several awards:
1999 Winner of the “International Meeting of Ballet Academies”
2010 “Grand Prix Giuliana Penzi”
2012 “Premio Positano”: best female newcomer
2014 “Wilhelmsen Holding ASA Company Award for Opera and Ballet”
2014 Nomination “Benois de la Danse” as best female dancer

She has also been guest artist in many international companies: Royal Swedish Ballet Stockholm, Ballet of Teatro di San Carlo Napoli, The Kremlin Ballet Moscow, Ballet of Kazan, Compañía Nacional de Danza Madrid

The Canadian-British dancer James Stout (Calgary) got interested in dance through his parents’ Argentinian tango dance club. From an early age, he helped out as a dance partner at the milongas (dance evenings). He went on to take lessons in ballroom and ballet, among other things. At the age of thirteen, he went to The School of Alberta Ballet – “because they needed boys”.

Later on, James trained with the Goh Ballet Academy in Vancouver; a period of tough, completely Chinese-oriented training that he says formed him. The final year of James’s training was spent at The Royal Ballet School in London.

Partly due to his great admiration for the former star principal Sofiane Sylve, James decided to join Dutch National Ballet in 2007, where he was promoted to soloist in season 2012-2013. Since 2018, James has been a principal with Dutch National Ballet; his promotion came immediately after his performance of the role of Tristan in David Dawson’s Tristan + Isolde. James succeeded in reaching the finals of ballet competitions in Varna, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Anna was born in Siberia. She started to dance at 5 years old and graduated from the Krasnoyarsk Ballet School in Siberia. 

Anna started her career with the Siberian State ballet (Krasnoyarsk, Russia) as a soloist. Later she became a guest-principal dancer with Mikhailovsky theatre (Saint-Petersburg) and Tatarstan state ballet (Kazan). Since 2012 Anna joined Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre ballet company as a principal dancer. During this period of dancing with Russian ballet companies her repertoire was very diverse. 

At 2015 she joined Dutch National Ballet as a principal dancer. Since that moment Anna became an international guest-principal dancer .She worked with Teatro Colon (Argentina) for “La Bayadere” by Natalia Makarova,  with Semperoper Dresden ballet for “Manon” by K.McMillan. Currently Anna is working with Staatsballet Berlin as a guest.

Anna’s repertoire is very diverse. During her carrier she dances principal roles in almost all well known classical ballets as “Nutcracker” , “Sleeping beauty”, “La Bayadere”, ”Gizelle”, “Copelia”, “La fille mal gardee”, “La Sylphide” , “Snow Maiden”, “Don Quihote”, ”Romeo and Juliette”, “Swan lake” and others. Her repertoire also includes main roles in lots of neoclassical ballets by such a famous choreographers as K.McMillan, J.Robbins, J.Kranko, G.Balanchine, A.Ratmansky, C.Wheeldon , Hans van Manen ,D.Dawson,Y.Grigorovich, Rudi van Danzig ,Ted Brandsen and others. In a different time her partners on stage were Sergei Polunin, Ivan Vasiliev, Leonid Sarafanov and others. 

In a studio legendary Natalia Makarova, Guillaume Graffine, Alexey Ratmansky, Michael Messerer , Patricia Neary, Patricia Ruann , Karl Burnett, Olga Evreinoff, Yukari Saito,Yannick Boquen ,Larissa Lezhnina, Rachel Beaujean and many others helped her to improve her skills of dance. At 2008 and 2010 she won gold medals on International ballets competitions in Krasnoyarsk and Perm. She is a winner of «Dance Open 2018- miss virtuosity» prize in Sankt Petersburg.

Currently Anna is working successfully with Dutch National ballet as a principal dancer and participates lots of  Ballet Galas around the world.

Liudmila Konovalova was born in Moscow (Russia). She graduated from Moscow Bolshoi Ballet Academy and joined the Russian State Ballet in 2002. In 2004 she was appointed First Soloist and danced the leading roles. In 2007 she joined the Staatsballett Berlin and was appointed Soloist in 2009. In 2010 she joined the Wiener Staatsballett as a Soloist and was promoted to First Soloist in 2011.

She has appeared as a guest dancer in many European Countries and overseas.
During the season 2013/14 she joined the Ballet de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Slovenské národné divadlo, the Teatro dell ‘Opera di Roma and the Tokyo Ballet as a guest soloist.
In March 2016 (London Coliseum) she had the honor to take part in the Ave Maya Gala in memory of Maya Plisetskaya.
For the ORF DVD production of “Der Nussknacker'' in the choreography of Rudolf Nureyev she danced the main role of Clara.

She has received many awards and honors:
3rd Place in the competition “Young Russian Ballet” in Krasnodar (2004).
Special Price from the Serge Lifar Ballet Competition in Kiev (2006).
2nd Place in the International Ballet Competition KIBC in Seoul.
1st Place in the ÖTR-Contest in Vienna (2007)
1st Place in the Ballet Competition “Premio Roma” (2007).
Premio Capri Danza International (2018).

In June 2019 Liudmila Konovalova was honoured by the Russian Embassy in Vienna for her merits of the cultural relation between Russia and Austria.

Denis Matvienko was born in 1979 in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. He began his training in classical dance at a very young age at the Kiev State Choreography School, and at the age of 18 he joined the Ukrainian National Ballet as a first figure.

In 2001 he joined the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg as a soloist. In 2003 he returned to the Ukrainian National Ballet and in 2007 he moved back to St. Petersburg to the Mikhailovsky Theatre as a principal dancer. Two years later, in 2009, he returned as principal star to the Mariinsky.

He has been a guest dancer with numerous companies, such as the Bolshoi, the New National Theatre of Japan, the Alla Scala Theatre and the Paris Opera.

During his career he has performed numerous princely roles, but he is a dancer with great versatility, which allows him to excel in neoclassical and contemporary works.

He has won major dance awards, including first place in the Luxembourg ballet competitions in 1997 and Budapest in 1998; the gold medal in Nagoya in 1999; and first place in the Moscow competition in 2005.

From 2011 to 2013 Matvienko was appointed artistic director and principal dancer of the ballet company of the Ukrainian National Opera and since June 2016 he has been artistic director of the ballet company of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Svetlana Bednenko became ballet soloist at the Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre when she was only 15 years old and danced leading parties of numerous classical ballets.
At the same time Svetlana took part in numerous international ballet competitions where she used to win leading first prizes.

In 2011 she became soloist of St Petersburg State Academic Eifman Ballet Theatre (her tutor was Tatiana Kvasova).
Svetlana´s repertory in Eifman ballet:
Me - Don Quijote (Kitri),
Russian Hamlet (Imperess Ekaterina II),
Chaikovsky (the wife of Chaikovsky),
Red Giselle (Olga Spesivtseva),
Who is who (Linn),
Onegin online (Olga),
Anna Karenina (Kiti) etc
As part of the ballet company Eifman Ballet Svetlana toured around Europe, Asia, Australia and USA.

From 2013 and up to now Svetlana Bednenko is a soloist of the ballet company of one of the best ballet theatres in the world - the Mikhailovsky Theatre ( St. Petersburg).
She dances leading solo parties in classical ballets such as “The Swan Lake”, “Don Quijote”, “La Bayadère “, “Le Corsaire”, “The Flame of Paris”, “Cipollino”, “The Sleeping Beauty”, “The Nutcracker” , “Romeo and Juliet” and many others