Sofia Golovkina

Sofia Nikolaevna Golovkina (alternate, Sophia; Russian, Головкина, Софья Николаевна; 13 October 1915 - 17 February 2004) was a Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher. A graduate of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography in 1933, she was the principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet till 1959. In 1960, she became director of the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet School. For her work, Golovkina was awarded the Russian Order of Merit, People's Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. She died in 2004 in Moscow.

Born in Moscow, Golovkina trained with Alexander Chekrygin at the Bolshoi Ballet School, joining the ballet when she was 17. There she danced the leads in the major classical works including Swan Lake, Raymonda, The Sleeping Beauty and Don Quixote. She also created roles as the Tsar-Maiden in Alexander Gorsky's The Little Humpbacked Horse and Zarema in Rostislav Zakharov's The Fountain of Bakhchisaray. In 1943, she danced Nikiya in Gorsky's La Bayadère and in 1947 she performed in Vasili Vainonen's Flames of Paris as Mireille de Poitiers in a work intended to show that the Russian Revolution had a more international context. Her dancing was characterized by a flamboyant virtuosity which was well suited to her patriotic roles during the Soviet era.