Career My teachers

Lydia Goncharova (1922–2014) was a Soviet ballet dancer and educator, and a soloist at the Mariinsky Theatre. She was honored as a Distinguished Artist of the Tajik SSR in 1973. She graduated from the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1940, where she studied under Agrippina Vaganova and Andrei Lopukhov, and subsequently joined the ballet company of the Kirov Theatre (now the Mariinsky Theatre). Goncharova was noted for her «rare, warm beauty, with large, deep eyes and expressiveness that immediately captivated ballet enthusiasts at the Mariinsky Theatre.»She performed all the leading character roles in the theatre’s repertoire. From 1964, she served as a teacher of character dance at the Leningrad Choreographic School, where she trained several generations of future Mariinsky Theatre artists. Between 1976 and 1978, she also worked as a teacher at the Cairo Ballet Institute in Egypt.