Natalia Osipova, a leading soloist with the Bolshoi Ballet, will join American Ballet Theatre as a Guest Artist during the Company’s 2009 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House, it was announced today by Artistic Director Kevin McKenzie.

Osipova was born in Moscow and trained at the Moscow State Academy of Choreography with Marina Kotova and Marina Leonova. Upon her graduation in 2004, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet and was promoted to first soloist in January 2008 and to leading soloist in October 2008.

Osipova’s repertoire with the Bolshoi includes Giselle and the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, the Spanish Doll in The Nutcracker, the role of Mustardseed, which she created, in John Neumeier’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Spanish Bride in Swan Lake, Kitri in Don Quixote, Gamzatti and a Shade in La Bayadère, Aspiccia in The Pharaoh’s Daughter, Medora and an Odalisque in Le Corsaire, the title role in La Sylphide, Jeanne in Alexei Ratmansky’s staging of Flames of Paris, and soloist roles in George Balanchine’s Serenade and Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room.

Osipova won the Grand Prize at the Prix de Luxembourg International Ballet Competition in 2003 and Third Prize at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow in 2005. At the 2007 National Dance Awards in London, she received the Richard Sherrington Award for Best Female Dancer. In 2008 she received the Golden Mask Award from the Theatre Union of Russia for her performance in In the Upper Room.

The 2009 Spring Season will mark Osipova’s first appearance with American Ballet Theatre.

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