Mr Jivoy, You are a dancer and choreographer with a master’s degree from the Vaganova Ballet Academy. Born in Saint Petersburg in 1989, you have been influenced by the city’s most famous artistic institutions. What was your life like before you left your home country?
My career as a dancer began when I was seven years old. Traditionally, we children first danced Russian and Spanish folklore and simple choreographies. At the age of ten I entered the Vaganova Ballet Academy, where I studied for nine years before becoming a member of the Mariinsky Ballet. My career as a choreographer began with a small piece that I was allowed to create in 2013 as part of a workshop at the Mariinsky Theater. It was the first workshop of this kind in Russia. Since then I have choreographed around twenty works for the Mariinsky and other theaters around the world, with dancers from the Bolshoi, Stanislavsky and international ballet companies. When working with Jivoy Dance Company, I invite dancers from other companies and other countries. I have often worked with Xander Parish, the British first soloist of the Mariinsky, abroad, for example in Switzerland and Spain.