Máire New is the first Alaskan to attend the Bolshoi Ballet academy this fall in Moscow.
Before Ms. New made it to Bolshoi, she started dancing ballet at the late age of 12 as per he a teacher’s suggestion.
“Her focus, for a 12-year-old, her ability to pick up steps--she just seemed to have a more mature facility I hadn’t seen before,” said local dance teacher Janice Hurley. In 2011, New attended the Joffrey Ballet’s summer intensive.
That summer, she met Irina Kuznetsova, a Mariinsky Ballet dancer and fell in to watching videos of Russian dancers Natalia Osipova, Svetlana Zakharova, and Ekaterina Maximova.
“If you watch any of them, there’s so much emotion and soul and passion in their dancing,” she said. “They’re absolutely living in the ballet. Every movement has a purpose. That’s something I hope to put into my dancing, too.”
A year later she attended the Bolshoi Ballet academy’s six-week intensive in New York in partnership with the Russian American Foundation. She returned in 2013 and was also chosen for a scholarship to study Russian culture and ballet at the Bolshoi for another six weeks.
“The goal is to break down stereotypes between our countries,” Ms. New said. “But on top of that, we had this incredible opportunity.” Those six weeks served as a kind of audition, and she was asked to return to the academy as a full-time student.
Out of the 700 students at Bolshoi less than 100 are international, leaving about 10 American classmates. Presumably, these low numbers are due to the political stance in Russia right now.
“I’ve had people come up and say to me, ‘If I was your father, I wouldn’t let you go,’ ” Ms. New said. “Of course, it’s a place of political strife, but you can’t let political issues get in the way of your dreams.”
Back home in Juneau, the community supports her dance efforts by donating to her GoFundMe account.
Watch below as Máire New performs "Monologue" as part of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy Acting Exam this past May.
