📍Saint Petersburg, Russia
1940 – 1970“Natalia Romanovna Makarova was born in Leningrad in November 1940, months before the Nazi siege began, and grew up in the city as it slowly recovered from the war. Her childhood was spent among the canals, grand façades and communal apartments of Leningrad, and she was a lively, artistic girl who loved to dance, but she did not begin formal ballet training until unusually late. At twelve or thirteen she auditioned for the Leningrad Choreographic School, the famous Vaganova school on Rossi Street, where most pupils begin at nine or ten. Determined to make up for lost time, she completed the nine-year course in six years, and her lyrical, fluid style and exquisite line soon stood out. She graduated in 1959 and joined the Kirov Ballet, where she quickly became a leading ballerina, celebrated for her Giselle and her Swan Lake, and won the gold medal at the Varna ballet competition in 1965. In September 1970, while on tour with the Kirov in London, she decided to stay in the West, seeking artistic freedom. She joined American Ballet Theatre in New York, making her debut in Giselle that December, and danced with the Royal Ballet in London. Her staging of La Bayadère in 1980 introduced the ballet to the West. In 1989 she returned to Leningrad to dance on the Kirov stage again, a moving reunion with the city where she had grown up, and she has since staged her productions around the world.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today