EDMONDS — Dancers from the Grand Kyiv Ballet lit up the stage with their performance of The Snow Queen on Saturday at the Edmonds Center for the Arts.
The Grand Kyiv Ballet, founded in 2014 by Oleksandr Stoianov, is an independent ballet company with many dancers from Ukraine. Stoianov and his family, including two children, settled in Bellevue after the wide-scale 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. His wife, Kateryna Kukhar, is also a principal dancer.
They have three ballet companies: one here, one in New York and another in Europe. In the local company, around 40% of the dancers are from Ukraine. In others, that proportion is much higher — in New York, 70% of the dancers are from Ukraine, while in Europe 95% of the dancers are from Ukraine.
Some of the dancers have endured losses during the war.
Life is tough for artists during wartime, Stoianov said, and some of his friends have started working other jobs, such as driving taxis, after theaters closed. The tour group is raising money for the Kyiv State Ballet College.
“We try to build the future for our students and for the artists,” says Stoianov.
The Snow Queen is based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and was created for audiences in the United States. The costumes and decorations were all made in Ukraine under the threat of bombing attacks, Stoianov says.
“It was very difficult,” he says. “The costumes were created in the dark.”
Marta Kaliandruk, 21, principal dancer with the Grand Kyiv Ballet, plays the role of Gerda in the production.
Originally from western Ukraine, Kaliandruk now is based in Kyiv. She said that the past four months she spent in the U.S. have been hard.
Kaliandruk said she calls her parents every day, but they avoid talking about the war.
“They want to know more about me, and they are happy that I am in a safe place and I can work and just share my talent,” she said. For the past three years, Kaliandruk has been traveling, visiting 20 countries on three continents.
The final performance of the Snow Queen in Edmonds was Sunday night. From there they will tour other U.S. cities.
The Grand Kyiv Ballet will return to the area to perform Swan Lake on May 21 at McCaw Hall in Seattle. Those tickets have not gone on sale yet.