Maria Kochetkova and Ruslan Skvortsov in Pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty

Maria Kochetkova (Rus. Мария Кочеткова, San Francisco Ballet) and Ruslan Skvortsov (Rus. Руслан Скворцов, The Bolshoi Theatre) in Pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, choreography by Marius Petipa. Benois de la Danse 2018, shot on 6.6.2018 in the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.

Maria Kochetkova (Rus: Мария Кочеткова; born 1984 in Moscow, Russia), is a Russian ballet dancer who performed as a Principal Dancer with both the San Francisco Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. Kochetkova trained at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography, in the class of Sofia Golovkina for eight years before dancing with The Royal Ballet and English National Ballet in London. She danced with the San Francisco Ballet as a principal dancer from 2007 and joined the American Ballet Theatre as a principal dancer in 2015. She just announced that she’ll be leaving the company at the end of this 2018 season

Ruslan Skvortsov (Rus: Руслан Скворцов; born 1980) is a Russian principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet. Ruslan was born in Yelets, Lipetsk Oblast, where he received his early training from Elena Timofeyeva, and then studied at the Moscow Choreographic Academy with Vyacheslav Mikhaylov. Upon his graduation in 1998 he joined the Bolshoi Ballet, where he has worked under the tutelage of Valery Lagunov and Nikolai Fadeyechev. In 2001 he was awarded a bronze medal at the Moscow International Ballet Competition. He was appointed to the rank of principal dancer in October 2009 and was awarded the title of Meritorious Artist of Russia in April 2014.

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