Karina Sarkissova

Karina Sarkissova (2012)

Karina Sarkissova (originally Karina Sarkissian ) ( Russian Карина Саркисова ; born September 26, 1983 in Moscow , Russian SFSR ) is a Russian - Austrian ballet dancer with Armenian roots .

Career

Karina Sarkissova began her training at the age of four at the Ballet School of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow . At the age of 12 she came to Austria on a scholarship for the ballet conservatory in St. Pölten . In 1999 she won the Prix de Lausanne dance competition for young ballet dancers and received an offer to join the ballet of the Vienna State Opera , which she accepted the following year. From January 1, 2009 to August 31, 2011, she was an active solo dancer at the State Opera and the Vienna Volksoper , after which she was on leave at her own request.

In Austria, in addition to her work as a dancer, from 2004 she worked as a choreographer in various productions by Choreo-lab , a series of projects organized and financed by the Ballet Club of the Vienna State Opera. In the movie Kottan determined: Rien ne va plus (2010) she had a guest appearance as a dancer. In the ORF show Dancing Stars she was a guest juror on two evenings of the sixth season, in autumn 2011, 2012 and 2013 she was a member of the jury for the casting show Die große Chance . In August 2012, Sarkissova announced her retirement from the Vienna State Opera. She prematurely terminated the contract with the State Opera, which had been concluded until August 31, 2013, in January 2013 in agreement with director Dominique Meyer and announced her move to the Hungarian National Ballet in Budapest , where she accepted an engagement as a solo dancer.

Karina Sarkissova as member of the jury for the ORF show Dancing Stars (2017)

Since 2017 she has been part of the international jury of the ORF show Dancing Stars together with Dirk Heidemann , Nicole Burns-Hansen and Balázs Ekker .

"Pictures Affair"

In the spring of 2010, nude photos of Sarkissova appeared in the June issue of Penthouse magazine . Since the recordings were made in the rooms of the Vienna State Opera without prior authorization, the ballet director at the time Gyula Harangozó warned them. After nude photos had been published again in August 2010, this time from a photo shoot for Wiener magazine , she was dismissed without notice on 23 August by the new ballet director Manuel Legris under the direction of Ioan Holender . The nude photos had already caught the tabloid media; the dismissal gave the affair even broader, international media attention. In a press release she wrote: "I consider the dismissal to be outright discrimination against me." In the meantime newspapers have also reported older photos in which ballet director Legris was to be seen naked, but which were taken with the permission of his employer at the time, the Paris Opera , and in connection with his activity as a dancer. After a clarifying conversation between Sarkissova and the new State Opera Director Meyer, the latter withdrew the notice in October.

Private

After the death of her father, her family moved to St. Pölten in 1995 . In March 2011 she was granted Austrian citizenship . Karina Sarkissova has been divorced since November 2011, and their son Gabriel, who was born in 2002, came from the marriage. On her 29th birthday a richly illustrated biography with the title Auf spitzen Sohlen was published, which caused a stir in advance because the book author Eric Sebach had advertised the work with her quote “I am bisexual”. Sarkissova's second son, Lev, was born on December 22, 2013. In March 2015, the dancer revealed that the father of her second child is not her ex-fiance, an American entrepreneur, but a colleague from the Budapest Opera.

Karina Sarkissova (2012)

Their most important roles include

Phrygia in Renato Zanella's Spartacus ,
Hamsatti and Grand Pas in Vladimir Malakhov's Die Bajadere,
Mizzi Caspar and Marie Countess Larisch in Kenneth MacMillan's Mayerling,
Peasant couple and Zulma in Elena Tschernischovas Giselle ,
Companion of the prince and Hungarian dancer in Rudolf Nureyev's Swan Lake ,
Fairy of Honor in Peter Wright's Sleeping Beauty ,
Autumn in Zanella's Cinderella ,
Barbie and Spanish Dance in Gyula Harangozós The Nutcracker ,
Italy in Zanellas The Nutcracker,
Prima donna in concert by Gyula Harangozó senior,
Lots
- in Marius Petipas Grand Pas from Paquita,
- George Balanchine's Apollo,
- Jirí Kylián's Petite Mort,
- Zanellas Boléro ,
- Beethoven Opus 73,
- Sensi and Duke's Nuts,
- Ben van Cauwenbergh's dance homage to Queen and
- in András Lukács' whirling.