Japan is a promised land for ballet dancers from all over the world. The reason for this is the unusually warm attitude of the audiences to ballet performances and, of course, to the ballet dancers themselves, whom they know, love and wait year after year.

Russian ballet is traditionally being presented in Japan by the State theaters of Bolshoi, Mariinsky, and Mikhailovsky.  Next to these amazing ballet companies is the Arts Center “Saint Michel” bringing its performances to Japan now for the second year in a row.

Organized by Koransha in July-August 2019, the Arts Center tour was held in the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Shizuoka, and others. The tour program included the Ballet “Les Sylphides” to the music of Frédéric Chopin and concert pieces from the Ballets “Swan Lake”, “Corsair”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “The Nutcracker”, “Esmeralda” and “Don Quiote”.

This year, among the dancers of the program were the winnerof International competitions, the guest soloist of Mikhailovsky Theatre Oksana Bondareva; the principal dancer of Mariinsky Theatre Andrey Ermakov;  the leading soloist of Bolshoi Theatre Anastasia Goryacheva; leading soloists of Mariinsky Theatre Laura Fernandez Gromova (from January 2020 – soloist of the Musical Theatre Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko) and Victor Kaisheta;  leading soloists of Mikhailovsky Theatre Irina Kosheleva and Mikhail Venshchikov, the soloist of the Musical Theatre of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Ksenia Zheltova; and the principal dancer of the State Opera of Perm Marcos Gonzaga.

In Tokyo, the performances took place on the world-famous stage of Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. In addition to the principal dancers of Mikhailovsky Theatre Irina Perren and Marat Shemiunov, were leading soloists of the Kiev National Opera Anna Muromtseva and Nikita Sukhorukov.

The ensemble of the women’s corps de ballet of Art Center “Saint-Michel” received words of special gratitude from the Japanese audience for their purity and accuracy of the performance.