Vladimir Vasiliev

Vladimir Viktorovich Vasiliev (; born 18 April 1940) is a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer and choreographer. He was a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet and its director from 1995 to 2000. He was best known for his role of Spartacus and his powerful leaps and turns. He received the People's Artist of the USSR (1973). Vasiliev was named "God of the dance" and is regarded as a classical dancer on the same level as Rudolf Nureyev, Erik Bruhn and Mikhail Baryshnikov. At the height of their careers, Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova were the golden couple of Russian ballet. Early life Vasiliev was born in Moscow in 1940, the son of a mechanical engineer. In 1947, at the age of seven, he joined the amateur ballet group of the Kirov pioneer group, where he stayed two years. His first teacher was Elena Romanovna Rosse. He entered the Moscow Ballet School, commonly known as The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, in 1947 and graduated in 1958, when he joined the Bolshoi Ballet. His teachers at the Moscow Ballet School included Aleksey Yermolayev.