Sergei Polunin

Sergei Polunin trained at the Kyiv State Choreographic School, before joining the Royal Ballet School aged 13 on a scholarship from the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation.

He became a first soloist at the Royal Ballet in 2009 and was promoted to Principal in 2010, aged 19. Sergei left the Royal Ballet in 2012 to dance as a Principal for the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre and as Guest Soloist with Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

At present he performs all over the world with leading ballet companies. His Royal Ballet roles included Dances at a Gathering and Rhapsody, Solor and Bronze Idol (La Bayadère), Des Grieux (Manon), Hans-Peter/Nutcracker and the Prince (The Nutcracker), Prince Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), Prince (Cinderella) and Lensky (Onegin). He created the role of Jack/Knave in Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and returned to the Company as a Guest Artist in 2013 to dance Armand (Marguerite and Armand) with Tamara Rojo. In 2011 he danced the Slave Master at the Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary performances at Royal Albert Hall. Roles with the Stanislavsky Ballet included Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake), Albrecht (Giselle), Frantz (Coppélia), Basil (Don Quixote), Solor and Crown Prince Rudolf (Mayerling).

His other projects include two music videos directed by David La Chapelle; There Must be More to Life Than This and Hozier’s Take Me to Church (which has been viewed over 17 million times on youtube) and Can I Make the Music Fly? a short film directed by Bruce Weber for Dior. He is also the subject of a biographical documentary, Dancer (released in UK in 2017), produced by Gabrielle Tana and directed by Steven Cantor.

His awards include the Prix de Lausanne, the Sixth Lifar International Ballet Competition, Young British Dancer of the Year, the Youth America Grand Prix, Critics’ Circle Outstanding Male Performance (Classical and Rising Star) and nominations for Critics’ Circle Best Male Dancer and a Golden Mask.