page_title: Alexandra Balashova
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Alexandra Balashova / Career
caption_attribution_description: Портрет Александры Балашовой, 1924
context_page_description: Alexandra Mikhailovna Balashova, also seen as Aleksandra Balashova or Alexandra Balachova, was a Russian ballet dancer, and later a dance teacher and choreographer.
context_section_description: Balashova was a principal dancer at the Bolshoi Theatre starting in 1905. She often danced with Mikhail Mordkin, and was known for such roles as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and Odette/Odille in Swan Lake. She performed in London in 1911, replacing Yekaterina Geltzer; for publicity, London bootmakers were challenged to fit "her marvelous instep" from their stock. She left Russia in 1921 and danced for about ten more years in Western Europe, then taught, while living in France. Among her students was dance notation expert Jacqueline Challet-Haas. In 1946 Balashova was credited as choreographer on a production of La fille mal gardée in London.
  Russian artist Filipp Malyavin painted her portrait in 1924, when they were both living in Paris.
caption: Alexandra Balashova by F. Malyavin (1924)
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