Maia Makhateli and Giorgi Potskhishvili in Don Quixote pas de deux

Maia Makhateli and Giorgi Potskhishvili (Dutch National Ballet) in Don Quixote pas de deux, music by Ludwig Minkus, choreography by Marius Petipa. Shot on 28 and 29.1.2023 in Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome. Les Etoiles Gala 2023, production by Daniele Cipriani Entertainment.

Maia Makhateli is a Georgian ballet dancer, a principal with the Dutch National Ballet. Makhateli was born in Tbilisi, Georgia. Starting at age 9, she trained in ballet at the Vakhtang Chabukiani Choreographic Choreographic Institute in Tbilisi, pedagogue Larisa Chkikvishvili. When she was 15, her father was offered a job with the Sun Valley Ballet in US. Makhateli also attended the school. In 2002, she joined the Colorado Ballet. Maia made her full length principal role debut at age 19, dancing Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty. She joined the Birmingham Royal Ballet as a soloist in 2006. She joined the DNB in 2007 as a grand sujet. Two years later, she became a soloist, and she was promoted to principal dancer in 2010.

Giorgi Potskhishvili joined Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company in 2020. In 2022, he was promoted to coryphée, skipping the corps de ballet completely, and in May, this same year, to grand sujet. Giorgi Potskhishvili (Tbilisi, Georgia) was born into a dancing family. By the age of seven, he had started learning Georgian dance and other folk dances at his parent’s dance school. He was then accepted to the V. Chabukiani Tbilisi Ballet Art State School at the age of thirteen. In 2017, Elena Glurjidze, former lead principal at English National Ballet, invited Giorgi to join her Summer Intensive Course at the Masters of Ballet Academy in London. He was able to secure a spot there after a successful audition in 2018.

Photos by Jack Devant ballet photography © with kind permission of Daniele Cipriani Entertainment, special thanks to Mrs. Simonetta Allder.