Svetlana Bednenko as Odette in Swan Lake

Svetlana Bednenko as Odette in Swan Lake, shot in St Petersburg in 2018.

Svetlana Bednenko

Svetlana was born in Donetsk, Ukraine in 1991 and in 2007 graduated from the Vadim Pisarev Ballet School and went on to join the Donetsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, where she danced a number of solo roles in classical ballets.

In 2011, she joined the Boris Eifman Ballet Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia, where her repertoire included the roles of Kitri (I, Don Quixote), Catherine II (Russian Hamlet), Tchaikovsky’s Wife (Tchaikovsky), Olga Spesivtseva (Red Giselle), Lynn (Who is Who), Olga (Onegin), and Kitty (Anna Karenina).

In 2013, she went on to join the Mikhailovsky Ballet where she was a First Soloist. Her repertoire includes solo and principal roles in Swan Lake, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, Le Corsaire, The Flames of Paris, Cipollino, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness, Prelude, and Class Concert.

She became a company member of the Ballett am Rhein in the 2021/22 season

In 2016 Svetlana took part in the filming of the BBC documentary “RUDOLF NUREYEV – DANCE TO FREEDOM” by Richard Kerson Smith playing the role of the famous Russian ballerina Alla Osipenko.

Svetlana became a Knight of the Order of the Arts of Ukraine in 2020.