Maria Kochetkova

Born in Moscow, Russia, Maria Kochetkova trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow. She became Prix de Lausanne 2002 Prize Winner and was offered an apprenticeship with the Royal Ballet. From 2007 to 2018, she was a Principal Dancer with the San Francisco Ballet. From 2018 she works as a freelance principal dancer, curator and producer.

Maria has performed as a guest artist with the Bolshoi and Stanislavsky Theaters in Moscow, the Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky Theaters in St. Petersburg, American Ballet Theater in New York, Rome Opera, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Tokyo Ballet, National Ballet of Cuba, Compañía Nacional de Danza in Madrid, Finnish National Ballet, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Hong Kong Ballet, Dresden Semperoper, Staatsoper Berlin, Norwegian National Ballet, English National Ballet in London, Portuguese National Ballet and National Ballet of Canada.

She was invited to join American Ballet Theatre as a principal dancer for the 2013-2017 seasons. Her repertory with the company includes Sylvia, Medora in Le Corsaire, Golden Cockerel, Nikiya in La Bayadère, Kitri in Don Quixote, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and Odette/Odile in Swan Lake.

In 2018, she presented her first solo project Catch Her if you Can at the Joyce theater in New York where she commissioned works by William Forsythe, Marcos Morau, David Dawson, Jerome Bel, Drew Jacoby and Sam Spiegel.

Maria was featured in Mugler Spring Summer 2022 campaign paying tribute to the late Thierry Mugler and in Blood Orange‘s video I Know dancing together with Dev Hynes. She starred in a video for fashion designer Julien David’s spring/summer 2015 collection, the official music video for the Cathedrals’ Unbound (2014), the video Spirit of Van Cleef & Arpels (2014), and an ad for Visa Checkout and Gap (2014). She performed the role of Juliet in the film of Tomasson’s Romeo & Juliet as part of the inaugural season of Lincoln Center at the Movies: Great American Dance. In December 2008, she was featured as the Grand Pas de Deux Ballerina in the PBS Great Performances broadcast of Tomasson’s Nutcracker, co-produced by San Francisco Ballet and KQED Public Television San Francisco, in association with Thirteen/WNET New York.

Maria was nominated for a Critics’ Circle National Dance Award (U.K.) for Best Female Dancer in 2014 and for a Benois de la Danse Award in 2013, for her performance as Tatiana in Cranko’s Onegin. In 2009, she was awarded the gold medal on NBC’s show Superstars of Dance. She won “Ballerina of the Year” award at Premio Positano 2017, a Benois de la Dance award in 2018 and the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for her Performance of Giselle during the 2008 Repertory Season. She is a gold medalist of the International Ballet Competitions in Korea, Italy (2005) and Luxembourg in (2003). She also won a silver medal and the jury prize at the Varna International Ballet Competition in 2002, and a bronze medal at Moscow International Competition in 2001.