Meet Our Audition Directors

Victoria Chiriac

Victoria Chiriac has performed as a soloist with Moscow Ballet for almost a decade and, for the first time in 2013, she will travel across North America ahead of the performance tour as Moscow Ballet Audition Director.  When not on international tours with Moscow Ballet Victoria is also a ballet teacher at the prestigious private school Prometeu-Prim in Chisinau, Moldova, familiarly known as Nicolae Lorga Lyceum. Ranked high among Moldovan schoolson an academic track, the school also providesa significant proportion of pupils for the national Olympic teams.

Victoria studied at Moldova’s National College of Choreography specializing in Ballet for four years and continued her studies for another four years at the Chisinau Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts with an emphasis in Choreography. Upon graduation she was invited to join the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Chisinau Moldova. Victoria has toured the world as a ballerina including traveling to: Spain, England, Ireland, Germany, Portugal and Italy in Europe, and to Canada, Romania and throughout Russia. Victoria’s solo repertoire includes the Moor Doll in Act I and the Russian, Chinese and Spanish Variations in Act II of the Great Russian Nutcracker, the Pas de Trois and Dance of the Small Swans in Swan Lake, and the Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty. She has also performed in Giselle, Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet, Snow White, Chipolino (based on Gianni Rodari's fairy taleabout vegetables), Coppelia, and La Bayadere. She speaks fluent Romanian, English and her native Russian.

Ekaterina Uksusnikova
Moscow Ballet introduces new Audition Director Ekaterina Uksuskinova for the 2013 season. Ekaterina is a highly trained dancer and accredited dance/movement pedagogue. In 2003 she graduated from the Genadiy Ledyah School of Classical Dance in Moscow with degrees in Ballet and Choreography. Later she attended the prestigious Moscow State Academy of Choreography and Pedagogy, graduating with degrees in both areas in 2012. In addition to dance and movement, Ekaterina has studied piano at the Music School of Frederic Chopin, English at the Institute of English, and is a certified Pilates and Yoga teacher.

Upon graduating for the first time in 2003, Ekaterina joined an internationally touring company and traveled the world for four years performing in all of the classic ballets including Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty and more. Now, when she is not on tour, Ekaterina teaches Ballet, Pilates, and Yoga for adults and children in Moscow. She continues to choreograph as much as possible, teaches dance and English, and creates choreography in the English Nursery School in Moscow.

Ekaterina joins Moscow Ballet for the 2013 tour as a soloist and Audition Director in the Great Russian Nutcracker 70 city North American tour.

Nataliya Miroshnyk
Nataliya Miroshnyk charms audiences each year with her dancing of the flamboyant Spanish variation in Act II of the Great Russian Nutcracker. An expertly trained ballerina, Nataliya graduated from the Kiev Academic Choreographic School in Ukraine in 1988.  Immediately on graduation Nataliya was invited to join the company of the Odessa State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater of the Ukraine and gained a tremendous amount of experience touring the world.  Nataliya’s repertoire includes classic ballets such as Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere, Don Quixote, Romeo and Juliet and, of course, the Great Russian Nutcracker.

Nataliya has danced as a soloist with Moscow Ballet for over six years and is also an Audition Director traveling across the U.S and Canada, auditioning and rehearsing young dancers to perform alongside the professionals in the Great Russian Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet. She is also a Moscow Ballet Summer Intensive teacher giving Vaganova method training for advanced and pre-professional American ballet students and a teacher for Moscow Ballet’s “New Horizons – A Children’s Program for Life.”

Svetlana Todinova
Svetlana Todinova, Moscow Ballet’s dynamic Audition Director and soloist for over a decade, reprises her role with Moscow Ballet for the 20th Anniversary tour. Born in Yadrun, Russia just outside of Moscow, Todinova completed formal training at the Ufimsky School of Choreography, now named the Rudolph Nureyev Russian State Ballet Academy in honor of the legendary dancer who was also a graduate, in 1997. Upon graduation, Todinova was invited to join the Krasnodarsk Musical Theater of the Bashkiria Theater and there danced for Yuri Grigorovich, famous for his virtuosic productions at the Bolshoi Theater.

In 1999, she joined Russia's renowned National Academy of Theatrical Arts, aka “GITIS,” founded in 1878 by theater pioneer and founder of the Stanislavsky acting method, K. Stanislavsky. The school was formed specifically as a training ground for choreographers and directors, and to preserve the heritage of Russian classical ballet. There she specialized in pedagogy and repertory for children.

Known for her high speed jumps, turns and strong accents, Svetlana is known affectionately among her colleagues as "The Baby Swan" for her role in the classic Swan Lake. Along with Swan Lake, her repetoire includes Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere, Carmen, Romeo and Juliet, and more. As Moscow Ballet Audition Director, Svetlana visits dozens of American cities in September and November annually, where she auditions and rehearses hundreds of aspiring dancers to perform in Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker. Following this, Svetlana joins her colleagues for the 20th Anniversary production of the Great Russian Nutcracker.