Alina Somova: the Russian ballerina takes on Manhattan

(Alina Somova is a Gaynor Minden artist, and about GM's Pointe shoes, she says: 

"It's easier to point, easier to balance and turn, easier to jump - and I love the sleek, arched look they give my foot - I won't dance in anything else now.  "

Go see her this summer in the Little Humpbacked Horse!  (This past semester at school, the musical director and accompanist at GKA often played excerpts from the Little Humpbacked Horse, which was a favorite of hers...)

Alina Somova as Tsar Maiden in Alexei Ratmansky’s Humpbacked Horse  Photograph: N.Razina 

Alina Somova is remarkable, and here’s a story to prove it: After she performed The Little Humpbacked Horse, Maya Plisetskaya, the revered Bolshoi star, visited her backstage, took off her diamond earrings, and handed them over. As part of the Mariinsky Ballet’s season at the Metropolitan Opera House beginning Monday 11—thank you, Lincoln Center Festival—Somova will reprise her part of the Tsar Maiden in Alexei Ratmansky’s Humpbacked Horse (for which she, as well as Ratmansky, won the Golden Mask award). She doesn’t dance small. Beyond her astounding extension is an enticing duality contrasting fragility with force: At her core, she’s wild, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Read more of the interview here:  http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/dance/1632643/alina-somova