Кроме Востротиной и, конечно же, Сомовой, никого не узнала на фото

Most unshackled of all was Alina Somova's Waltz Girl. After being turned off by her gauche and vulgar reduction of her first Bayadere into little more than an excuse to show off her extensions and other technical tricks, I found myself completely overwhelmed by her performances in the season's second week; she was just plain brilliant in her second Bayadere, and in Etudes. I don't often speak for Balanchine, but I feel safe in saying he'd have loved Somova's coltish energy, her artless, almost instinctual technical brilliance (where did all that affectation vanish to?), and, perhaps most of all, her sheer hunger and voracity in movement. She dances like a starving woman at a buffet -- a bit like the young Darci Kistler -- and if she's sometimes coarse and vulgar (qualities which stand out like a sore thumb against the Kirov's usual propriety), well, Balanchine was famously fond of the occasional vulgarity, and would sometimes exhort his dancers to be more vulgar. He didn't have much use for shrinking violets. I don't know whether Balanchine would've forgiven Somova her peroxide-blonde hair, her rings and those trailer-trash nail extensions, but I did.

I found particularly entrancing her waltz with Danila Korsuntsev -- I loved the energy of her legs, swinging freely into sharply angled arabesques as he swung her around, those big skirts billowing and following her like a third dancer. Somova's extensions are so naturally high, it seems her natural shape is a diamond or chevron. However actute and extreme her line might seem, for her it's quite natural: it's her world, and welcome to it. At the end of the Russian dance, when the corps reassembles for the restatement of the opening theme, Somova's echoing of that opening hand gesture, while held in Korsuntsev's arms, really took my breath away. You might not like her feet or arms, but there's no disputing that she has ferocious turnout, and the grand progression of her developpé echoed and augmented her arm as it reached skyward before folding back on her averted face. In the Elegie, Somova rather plunged herself into the implied drama, especially as Alexander Sergeev flipped her almost-supine body before lowering her to the stage; perhaps it was a bit naive how Somova echoed Tchaikovsky's chords with her outflung arms, but left no doubt she was feeling the music, and the moment. (Saturday night, Kondaurova made a point of carefully holding arms in a perfect fifth above her head, even as she was spun and lowered; I adore her, but she's not a "swept-away-by-the-music" kind of girl.)

Eric Taub for ballet.co.uk

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