Yulia Smirnova was born in Leningrad in 1981. In 2000 she graduated from St Petersburg’s Vaganova Ballet Academy, where she studied classical dance with Galina Novitskaya, Natalia Apodiakos and Lyudmila Kovalyova; character dance with Alisa Strogaya; and duet-classical dance with Vadim Desnitsky.
From 2000 to 2012 Yulia Smirnova was a member of the corps de ballet and a soloist in character roles at the Mariinsky Theatre. Her repertoire included the Hungarian Dance, the Spanish Dance and the Mazurka in Swan Lake; the Gypsy Dance, the Oriental Dance, the Fandango and Mercedes in Don Quixote; the Krakowiak, Girey’s Second Wife, a Captive and a Panenka in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai; the Oriental Dance in The Nutcracker (choreography by Kirill Simonov); the Spanish Dance in The Nutcracker (choreography by Vasily Vainonen); a Tavern Maid and the Folk Dance in Romeo and Juliet; the Panaderos and the Hungarian Dance in Raymonda; the Gypsy Dance in The Little Humpbacked Horse (choreography by Alexei Ratmansky); the Fiery Witch in Shurale; Effie and Madge in La Sylphide; the Forban in Le Corsaire; an Odalisque in Shéhérazade; Latona in Apollo; and the Boxer’s Lady in The Bedbug. She also appeared there in operas, dancing a Young Polovtsian Maiden and a Captive in Prince Igor, the Persian Dance in Khovanshchina, the Bolero in Betrothal in a Monastery, the Lezginka in Ruslan and Lyudmila.
Yulia Smirnova is the choreographer of the Mariinsky Theatre’s production of the opera Ernani (2025).
Since 2013 she has served as a faculty member at the Vaganova Ballet Academy, teaching in the Department of Character and Historical Dance and Acting. From 2017 to 2024 she also worked as a rehearsal coach at St Petersburg’s Leonid Yacobson Ballet Theatre.
Information for July 2025
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