Ivan Putrov is a Ukrainian dancer whose artistic career developed at the Royal Ballet in London. He has never forgotten either his Ukrainian roots or the richness of Ukraine’s dance tradition. When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putrov and Alina Cojocaru, the Romanian-born and Ukrainian-trained étoile of the Royal Ballet, launched Dance for Ukraine, a programme that raises funds for professional dance schools and companies in Ukraine. On March 21, 2026, Dance for Ukraine presented a charitable performance at the Royal Academy of Dance. The programme united young dancers from Ukraine and the United Kingdom in the intimate setting of the Academy’s Aud Jebsen Studio Theatre. Putrov, whose company Inspiration in Motion produced the event, changed the format from a traditional theatre gala to a studio presentation without reducing its poignancy. The smaller, bare stage brought the dancers closer, making their emotions more immediate. It also allowed for excellently conceived conversational interludes conducted by Putrov. The personal stories of dancers raised and trained in Ukraine along with those who supported their Ukrainian colleagues by compassion and conviction made the evening even more penetrating.

Raised in a family of ballet dancers, Putrov studied at the Kyiv State Choreographic Institute (now the Tetyana Tayakina Kyiv State Ballet College) and later at the Royal Ballet School. Upon his graduation in 1998, Sir Anthony Dowell invited him to join the Royal Ballet. Putrov was then only eighteen then, while his native Ukraine had counted her independence for seven years (Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union on August 24, 1991, a few days after the failed Communist coup d’état). At the Royal Ballet, Putrov rose to the rank of principal dancer, accumulated a diverse repertoire of classical and contemporary ballets, and later gained experience in producing artistic events.

All this proved instrumental in his recent work for Ukrainian dance. In 2025, Frederick Ashton’s ballet La Fille mal gardée was added to the repertoire of the National Opera of Ukraine. Putrov assisted in acquiring the rights to the production, helped raising funds for its costumes, designs, and lighting, and oversaw the rehearsal process. The Kyiv premiere of this sprightly, humorous, and optimistic comedy-ballet was one of the high points of Dance for Ukraine’s activities in 2025. More importantly, obtaining the rights for La Fille mal gardée became a long-term investment in the company’s repertoire.

The history of Ukrainian classical dance reaches far back in time, although it has yet to be fully written, having long remained in the shadow of Russian ballet. Kyiv was the birthplace of Vaslav Nijinsky and Serge Lifar (Lifarev, as his original surname was), to name just a few dancers of international renown. Lifar began his training at Bronislava Nijinska’s dance school, one of the progressive, experimental artistic sites that existed in Kyiv during the tumultuous years of 1918–1919. Training at the State Ballet College and the Lifar Academy, two main professional dance schools in Kyiv, is based on the Vaganova method, brought to Ukraine by Halina Berezova, one of Vaganova’s foremost students, who graduated from the State Choreographic School in Leningrad in 1925. Beyond Kyiv and its distinguished ballet tradition, professional schools training ballet and character dancers exist in Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Lviv. Ukrainian-born and Ukrainian-trained dancers have won international recognition and become soloists and principals in the world’s leading companies. Putrov’s own rich career is firm proof of this. He now concentrates his efforts on ensuring that ballet training, which is a long and laborious process requiring fully equipped studios, experienced ballet masters, and a diverse repertoire, is not interrupted by the war.

The performing arts in Ukraine currently endure the severe conditions imposed by the war. Theatres and concert halls in Kyiv and other major cities continue to give performances, even when the action on stage is interrupted by alerts that force audiences and performers to descend into shelters. In Kyiv, certain productions are in such demand that tickets disappear as quickly as they do at the Vienna Staatsoper or the Paris Opera. Artists and their audiences are not simply courageous: they firmly assert their determination to preserve their national culture despite Russian bombardments and the shortages of heat and electricity during winter. The education of young artists, however, poses an even greater challenge. State-supported students at the Kyiv State Ballet College, associated with the National Opera of Ukraine, face shortages of funding on several levels. The training of dancers is a long and demanding process founded on the integrity of cultural transmission. Putrov’s 2026 campaign therefore focused primarily on raising money for professional dance students in Ukraine.

The performance at the Royal Academy of Dance, touchingly introduced by Dame Darcey Bussell, President of the Royal Academy of Dance, brought together artists who shared Putrov’s compassion for and commitment to the Ukrainian people, now in the fifth year of their struggle against Russian aggression. The programme combined traditional delights: the fiery wedding pas de deux from Don Quixote, performed by Ukrainian dancer Alisa Garkavenko of Birmingham Royal Ballet and Denis Teixeira, a student at the Royal Ballet School; Le Grand Pas Classique with its indispensable display of technical bravura, performed by Hanna Park and Martin Diaz; and a pas de deux from Coppélia, danced with elegance and jocosity by Viola Pantuso and Caspar Lench. The latter four dancers are all members of the Royal Ballet.
There was a glimpse of the Romantic tradition in the pas de deux from Giselle, interpreted with sincerity and depth by Marianna Tsembenhoi and Joseph Sissens. Their recent debuts in the ballet’s central roles became one of the revelations of the past London season. The pas de deux from Ashton’s Rhapsody, danced with amplitude and style by Akane Takada and Patricio Revé, both Royal Ballet, reflected the British neoclassical tradition. Edward Watson, a former principal dancer and now a repetiteur with the Royal Ballet, created a grave and powerful vision of the human soul in Single Man, a short ballet choreographed by Jonathan Watkins, while Joshua Junker shared his own choreographic essay, 324A, set to a chorale by J. S. Bach.

The famous Dying Swan, choreographed by Mikhail Fokine for a charitable gala in 1905, appeared in two iterations during the evening: a version for a male dancer, elegantly performed by Denilson Almeida in choreography by Royal Ballet principal Calvin Richardson, and Fokine’s traditional version, interpreted with stunning lyricism by Marianna Tsembenhoi.

For all its ingredients of a traditional gala, the March performance at the Royal Academy of Dance never strayed from its cause: sustaining the training of dancers in Ukraine during wartime. The theme seemed woven into every work, but it resonated particularly strongly in the episodes that opened and closed the two halves of the programme. The first began with Kitri’s entrance from Don Quixote, performed by Alisa Garkavenko. This young Ukrainian ballerina filled the stage with luminosity and energy, setting the tone for the evening.

The opening of the programme’s second half expressed the idea of resistance-- through art and in combat--more explicitly. Forever in the Heart, choreographed and performed by Mariia Shapoval, a recent graduate of Brighton Dance Academy, was a tribute to her father, Oleksandr Shapoval (1975–2022), a soloist of the National Opera of Ukraine who was killed in combat in the Donetsk region. Shapoval’s powerful yet restrained expression of grief and faith in her mother country brought audience and dancers face to face with the stark reality of war: it kills men and women, fathers and mothers, children, and dancers too. Wrapped in the Ukrainian flag, Shapoval took only one quick bow as emotion flooded the auditorium.

The conversation on stage that Ivan Putrov conducted with Marianna Tsembenhoi and Joseph Sissens added a touching human dimension to the evening. It is always a welcome surprise for the public to discover simple human stories beneath the luster of ballerinas’ white tutus and the elegant bearing of their partners. Tsembenhoi, a dancer of delicate lines and ethereal lightness, spoke of her Kyivan childhood. Raised almost entirely by her Ukrainian mother while her father, from the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, was imprisoned in his country for political reasons, she ardently pursued her dream of becoming a classical dancer despite a biracial appearance uncommon in the Slavic ballet world. She left Ukraine at seventeen, having been accepted by the Royal Ballet School to complete her dance training. Sissens, a British dancer of Caribbean heritage, spoke about the opportunity to study dance that should be open to anyone, anywhere, crediting his family’s support in the fulfilment of his dream. Their mothers, present in the audience, received a generous round of applause. The Ukrainian dimension of the evening became universal: personal stories, like dance itself, know no national borders.

In the finale, Denis Teixeira danced the hopak solo from Taras Bulba, a ballet little known in the West and based on Ukrainian national history. This traditional folk dance always transmits energy and bravery to an audience; performed by a dancer as young as Teixeira, it also offers hope for the future. Teixeira, still in his graduating class at the Royal Ballet School, had earlier revealed his musical talent by playing a violin arrangement of Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Swan to accompany Marianna Tsembenhoi’s remarkable interpretation of The Dying Swan.

The March performance at the Royal Academy of Dance made everyone present aware of the strength and generosity of the human heart. It raised £36,000 for Inspiration in Motion’s grant programme, which will support students at the Tetyana Tayakina Kyiv State Ballet College and the Serge Lifar Municipal Academy of Dance in 2026–27. Yet Putrov and his team believe firmly in sustained action. We encourage our readers to learn more about Inspiration in