1. Maya Plisetskaya
(20 November 1925 – 2 May 2015)‏

2. Family
Her father, Mikhail Plisetsky, was a famous engineer and communist who held a senior position in the country’s coal industry.
Her mother, Rakhil Messerer, was a film actor.

3. In 1932 her family lived in Svalbard (Spitsbergen )‏
Maya Plisetskaya`s career started in that island. Her debute took place in  the opera Rusalka by Dargomyzhsky.

4. Education In 1934 Plisetskaya entered the Bolshoi Ballet School.
Plisetskaya was known for the height of her jumps, her extremely flexible back, the technical strength of her dancing, and her charisma.
Plisetskaya studied ballet from age nine and first performed at the Bolshoi Theatre when she was eleven.

5. Maya Plisetskaya developed her own style of dancing.
She is an author of such element as «jump rings».
In 1960 she became a prima-ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre.

6. She created a number of leading roles
Lavrovsky's Stone Flower , Moiseyev's Spartacus, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty , the title role in Alberto Alonso's Carmen Suite, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake.

7. She performed in a number of countries.
Petit's La Rose malade (Paris, 1973), Bejart's Isadora (Monte Carlo, 1976) and his Moscow staging of Leda (1979), Granero's Maria Estuardo (Madrid, 1988), and Lopez's El Renedero (Buenos Aires, 1990)‏

8. She retired as a soloist for the Bolshoi at age 65
Since 1994, she has presided over the annual international ballet competitions, called Maya.
in 1996 she was named President of the Imperial Russian Ballet.

9. Besides her career as a ballet dancer she was a good actress: the film «Anna Karenina»
She was a choreographer in some plays such as «Anna Karenina», «The Seagull», «The lady with the dog»

10. Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra painted Plisetskaya in 2013.
Conductor and artistic director Valery Gergiev gave a concert in Moscow on November , dedicated to her memory.
On November 20, 2015, the government of Russia named a square in her honor in central Moscow.

11. “In art it doesn't matter «what». It is more important «how» ” .
If you want to learn more about Maya Plisetskaya’s biography and her artistic creation you can watch documentary films about her life.For example «Portraits of the Epoque».
If you want to find her as an actress you can watch «Anna Karenina», «The lady with the dog»
If you want to enjoy her dancing you can watch her best performances.

12. Questions What were her parents?
How did Maya Plisetskaya’s career start?
What performances did she take part in?
What did she do besides ballet?
How can we learn about her life?