Saint Petersburg Eifman Ballet, established by Boris Eifman in 1977, was from day one recognized for its new and innovative concept of ballet. The company’s first performances already stirred the interest of the audiences and ballet critics who argued about new tendencies in Russian ballet.

In the 1980’s the choreographer and his company, characterized by an outstanding dance intellect, continued to explore new genres and develop new repertoires which are all distinguished for their strikingly sharp choreographies, intended to express the fiery passion of the ballet characters.

Today St. Petersburg Eifman Ballet is renowned among ballet lovers in Asia, Europe, the Americas and in Australia for such ballets as I, Don Quixote; Red Giselle, Russian Hamlet, Anna Karenina, The Seagull, Eugene Onegin, Rodin, Beyond Sin, Requiem, Up & Down, Tchaikovsky. PRO et CONTRA. These works not only represent the highest artistic level of achievements of contemporary Russian ballet, but also welcome the spectators into the immortal spiritual heritage of Russian and world culture that inspired the choreographer and his dancers. The creativity and innovation of Eifman Ballet and their new interpretations of cultural masterpieces carry a huge educational potential to involve a wide audience into the world of high arts.

Boris Eifman’s endeavor to engage his spectators in the infinite world of human passions, to form a spiritual liaison with the audience, to amaze viewers by the brilliance and dynamism of his plastique – all this has ensured a decades-long success of Eifman Ballet’s performances at leading venues around the globe.

Artistic Director & Founder: Boris Eifman

Boris Eifman is one of the few, if not the only Russian choreographer who’s energetic and brilliant artistic life has been going on for several decades. He has created more than forty ballet performances and obtained honorary titles such as the People’s Artist of Russia, the Laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation, the laureate of the Golden Mask and the Golden Soffit, he is also the holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, and many international prizes and titles.

The choreographer was born in Siberia and received his ballet degree from the department of choreography of the Leningrad Conservatory. Already in 1977 he set up his own company – the Leningrad New Ballet today known to millions of art lovers as St. Petersburg Eifman Ballet. The choreographer and his outstanding dancers are known for creating the new dance repertory of modern Russia. According to Boris Eifman a new century demands new choreographies that closely reflect the modern human being. Earnestly concerned with the problems of today Boris Eifman openly speaks with his audience about complicated and dramatic aspects of human life; he defines his genre as “psychological ballet”. “Throughout my creative life I’ve been expanding the boundaries of the ballet theatre and, first and foremost, searching for a body language capable of expressing the life of human spirit. Dance isn’t a physical process for me, but a spiritual one”, - says Boris Eifman.

Forming a special and innovative repertoire based upon the rich traditions of Russian psychological theater, and new choreography of the XXI century are among the key priorities within the artistic mission of Boris Eifman and his company.

Program: The Brothers Karamazov
A ballet by Boris Eifman
Based on
The Brothers Karamazov
novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Music: Richard Wagner, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff
Set and costumes: Vyacheslav Okunev
Premiere: April 29, 2013

The Brothers Karamazov novel was the epitome of Dostoevsky’s creative development, the acme of the philosophic investigation carried ut by this colossal and restless mind throughout his life. For the last two decades, observing the march of the contemporary history of our country, I have kept getting convinced again and again of the all-time relevance of this work of literature regarded as the spiritual will and testament of the great writer.
Expanding the potential of body language as a way of exploring the inner world of man, we offer our vision of the key ideas of the novel.

Beyond Sin both carries on and develops the tradition of the psychological ballet art and strives to accomplish another equally complicated task to create a choreographic art equivalent to the subject so masterfully investigated by Dostoevsky that of the racking burden of destructive passions and of bad heredity.

The Beyond Sin ballet is an attempt to study the origins of the moral catastrophe of the Karamazovs, to understand the primal essence of the excessively broad human nature, the mystery of the inner life of human hearts and souls where «God and Devil are fighting». Having, on principle, rejected the idea of putting on stage all story lines of the novel, I focused on the process of creating choreographic insights into the souls of the main characters beset with internal conflicts.

In The Brothers Karamazov there is expressed a pivotal idea: if there is no God then all things are lawful. Our modern times could be comprehensively described with a different expression: God exists, and yet all things are lawful. For this very reason time is now ripe to rethink the issues and problems which haunted Fyodor Dostoevsky and his heroes.

A search for the ways to the happiness of mankind, the price to be paid for such a harmony, the power of vice and sin over man, the nature of true faith one who seriously ponders over these topics simply cannot cherish hopes for attaining absolute truth.But touching upon them we are step by step moving toward a better understanding of ourselves in this imperfect and ever-changing world.

Program: Anna Karenina

A ballet by Boris Eifman
Based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy

Music: Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Sets: Zinovy Margolin
Costumes: Vyacheslav Okunev
Light: Gleb Filshtinsky
Premiere: March 31, 2005

Boris Eifman's ballet Anna Karenina is a true burst of inner psychological energy and is amazingly precise in delivering emotional impact upon its viewers. By setting aside all secondary storylines in Leo Tolstoy's novel, the choreographer focused on the love triangle "Anna – Karenin – Vronsky".

Using dance language, Boris Eifman in his ballet managed to portray the drama of a woman being reborn. According to the choreographer, it is the love passion, the "basic instinct" which has led the heroine to the breach of the then current norms of social morality, killed motherly love in Anna Karenina and destroyed her inner world. Being so completely consumed and crushed by passion, a woman is ready for any sacrifice.

The choreographer says that his ballet speaks not of previous times but of today: the timeless emotional content of the performance and obvious parallels to reality can't leave the contemporary viewer indifferent. The brilliant technical mastery of the company's dancers and Boris Eifman's astounding choreography present to us in a remarkably impressive way all the aspects and peripeteias of the Tolstoy's novel.

Program: Tchaikovsky. PRO et CONTRA

Tchaikovsky. PRO et CONTRA is the result of Boris Eifman's years-long contemplation of the great composer's personality and creative world. He offers a new, original choreographic creation that reflects the diversity of themes related to his creative life, his personanlity, his relationship with the loved ones. The choreographic score of the new production accurately conveys emotional experience of the characters. The ingenuity of the body language allowed Boris Eifman to explore insightfully the internal conflict, from which Tchaikovsky suffered painfully and which became a source of unbearable mental suffering and predestined the tragic confessional tone of his music.