Ivan Putrov

Ivan Putrov (born 8 March 1980) is a Ukrainian-born ballet dancer and producer. He trained at The Kyiv State Choreographic Institute and at The Royal Ballet School. Upon graduation Sir Anthony Dowell invited him to join the Royal Ballet, which he did in September 1998. He has continued to dance with companies around the world, to organize dance events and to teach.

Putrov was born in Kiev to parents who were both ballet dancers from the Ukrainian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, Natalia Berezina-Putrova and Oleksandr Putrov. He appeared on stage for the first time at the age of 10 in the ballet "The Forest Song".

Educated at the Kiev Ballet School, at the age of 15 Ivan Putrov won the Prix de Lausanne competition (1996), where the then Royal Ballet School director Merle Park was a judge. Putrov spent 18 months at the Royal Ballet School and on graduation in 1998 was invited by the Royal Ballet's director, Anthony Dowell, to join the company itself. He was offered a principal's contract with the Kiev Ballet, but turned it down and decided to join the Royal Ballet, as an artist; he began to dance roles such as the Nutcracker prince, the Boy with the Matted Hair in Shadowplay and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet. Having taken part in Royal Ballet School performances at Covent Garden in 1998 and 1999, in 1999-2000 he took roles in The Nutcracker, Les Rendezvous, Masquerade and Siren Song. He danced many performances as the Nephew in Peter Wright's production of The Nutcracker and added roles in Romeo and Juliet, The Concert, and Giselle (Albrecht).

He was coached by Dowell for his debut as Beliaev in A Month in the Country in 2001 and also added Basilio in Don Quixote to his repertoire. In 2002 he danced in Onegin (Lensky) and La Bayadère (The Golden Idol), as well as ballets such as The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Por Vos Muero, and The Leaves are Fading. He became a principal with The Royal Ballet in 2002. Putrov won the National Dance Award for Outstanding Young Male Artist (Classical) the same year.

The following year Putrov danced in Coppélia, Mayerling, Swan Lake and Scènes de ballet. His debut as Le Spectre de la Rose at the Royal Opera House was in May 2004 (which he also portrayed, as Nijinksy, in the 2005 film Riot at the Rite). In Sam Taylor-Wood's 2004 film installation "Strings", he danced suspended by a harness above four musicians playing the slow movement from Tchaikovsky's Second String Quartet, filmed in the Crush Bar of the Royal Opera House.

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