Maria Allash and Denis Rodkin in a Legend of Love

Maria Allash (Rus Мария Аллаш) and Denis Rodkin (Rus. Денис Родькин) in a Legend of Love, music by Arif Malikov, choreography by Yuri Grigorovich. Stars of Benois de la Danse 2015 – Laureates of Different Years, shot on 27.5.2015 in the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.

Maria Allash (Rus Мария Аллаш) is currently Principal Dancer with the Bolshoi Theatre ballet. Born in Moscow. In 1994, she completed her studies at the Moscow Choreographic College (today the Moscow Choreographic Academy), where her teacher was Sophia Golovkina, and joined the Bolshoi Ballet Company. Her teacher-repetiteur at the Bolshoi was Tatiana Golikova.

Denis Rodkin (Rus. Денис Родькин) is leading soloist with Bolshoi Ballet Moscow. He was born in Moscow. In 2009 he graduated from the dance school of the Gzhel Moscow State Academic Dance Theatre and joined the Bolshoi Ballet. In 2013 he graduated from the pedagogical faculty of the Moscow State Academy of Dance. Has rehearsed under Nikolai Tsiskaridze currently his repetitour is Yuri Vladimirov.

Arif Malikov (also Melikov; born 1933 in Baku) is an Azerbaijani and Soviet composer. He graduated from the Baku Conservatory as a music composer in 1958. He shot to fame in 1961 when his first major composition “Legend of Love”. Since then, Malikov has written music for two more ballets including “Yer üzündə iki nəfər (balet)” Yer üzündə iki nəfər (balet) (“Dvoe” or “Two”) (1967) and “Poem of Two Hearts” (1981), five symphonies & eight symphony poems. He has also written scores for a large number of films and plays and is familiar with practically all genres of music composition.

A Legend of Love was staged at the Kirov State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Leningrad (present day St Petersburg) and received nationwide acclaim. The ballet has been staged in several countries in Europe and is regarded as one of the finest works emerging from the former Soviet Union. The ballet “Legend of Love”, is based upon the legend of “Farhad and Shirin”, a story of unrequited love that was immortalized by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet

Photos by Jack Devant Ballet Photography with kind permission of the Benois de la Danse and Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, special thanks to Nina Kudriavtseva-Loory, Regina Nikiforova and Denis Savchenko.