Andris Liepa

People’s artist of Russia, theater producer, artistic director and chief balletmaster of the «Kremlevskiy ballet» theater, ballet dancer Andris Liepa was visited Kazakh national academy of choreography on 17 November 2018.

It’s not the first visit to Kazakhstan, but famous guest of capital was surprised. Kazakh National academy of choreography left him indifferent by all necessary infrastructure as ballet studios with a special floor covering, massage room, gyms, swimming pool and own training theater.

After the excursion about the Academy, Andris Liepa had a meeting with students and talked about his career, the difficulties on the way to success, injuries and curious cases right before the first performance on the stage at the Royal theater Covent-Garden. The most interesting moment for the Academy’s students was the story about the shooting of the ballet “Scheherazade” in the “Mosfilm” studio, where only static cameras were used at that time, and the movement was required to shoot the ballet. The best way out of such situation was skateboard, which was equipped by camera that moved during artists’ jumps.

It should be reminded that Andris Liepa is ballet dancer and producer, the son of the famous Latvian ballet dancer Marius Liepa. After graduating from choreographic school Andris was accepted to the Bolshoi theatre ballet company, where danced leading parties, took a participation in the performances of the famous ballet company The New York City Ballet, La Scala and Mariinsky theatre, worked with the world’s classicists as Baryshnikov and Bejart.  

He made his debut as a choreographer and continues to do it successfully to this day – he restored the “Petrushka”, “Scheherazade” and “Firebird” of the legendary choreographer Mikhail Fokine in the early 1990s.