Irina Kolesnikova


Irina Vladimirovna Kolesnikova is a Russian ballet dancer.

Biography

She graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy in 1998, class of Elvira Korkorina, and after being rejected by the Kirov and Mikhailovsky Theatre, she joined the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre of Konstantin Tachkin.
With this corps, she has toured internationally, playing the title role in Giselle, and Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. Other roles in her repertoire include Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Masha in The Nutcracker, lead dancer in Legend of Love. In September 2007 she danced Sheherezade for the first time at the Gala des Etoiles in Paris, partnered by Dmitri Semionov. Her coaches include Honoured Artists of Russia Alla Osipenko and Lubov Kunakova.
In 2016, she visited the refugee centers in the Balkans with the support of Oxfam. The stories she heard gave her ideas to bring attention to the refugee crisis. The story was named "Her Name Was Carmen" and it's a story of love, jealousy and death, set in a modern-day refugee camp.
In 2020, Kolesnikova toured the United States for the first time, performing in New York City and Washington DC.

Awards

Kolesnikova has been successful in many international competitions, winning a gold medal at Prague 2002, the Natalia Makarova Prize and silver medal at Arabesque 2002 in Perm, and a silver medal at the Japanese International and Modern Dance Competition in 2005. In the same year, she was nominated for Best Female Dancer in Britain's National Dance Awards, after a single performance of Swan Lake at the Royal Albert Hall.