📍Moscow, Russia
1986 – 2004“Natalia Osipova was born in Moscow in May 1986 and grew up in the city. As a little girl she was a gymnast, starting at small studios at four or five, and she was determined and ambitious, dreaming of an Olympic medal. But when she was eight, she injured her spine in a fall, and the doctors warned that if she continued, she might feel the injury all her life. Her mother, frightened, took her out of gymnastics, and Natalia was heartbroken. To help strengthen her back, she was sent to ballet classes, at first unwillingly; she has said she disliked the slow routine after the excitement of sport. She studied at Mikhail Lavrovsky's ballet school in Moscow, and then was accepted to the Moscow State Academy of Choreography, the Bolshoi's school. Her gymnastics had given her discipline, willpower and strength, though she had to learn turnout after years of training in parallel. Her teachers soon saw her extraordinary jump, speed and fearless energy, and she grew to love ballet as she had loved gymnastics. She graduated in 2004 and joined the Bolshoi Ballet straight from school, quickly becoming a star, famous for her soaring leaps in Don Quixote and her Giselle, and was made principal in 2010. In 2011 she left the Bolshoi, dancing with the Mikhailovsky Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, and in 2013 she joined the Royal Ballet in London as a principal dancer. She has also danced contemporary works by choreographers such as Arthur Pita and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, and is known as one of the most daring dancers of her time.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today