Natalia Osipova

“Forces of Nature” has already triumphed in New York and Shanghai, Abu Dhabi and Barcelona. Outstanding soloists have changed, and so have the works of renowned choreographers: Natalia Osipova has more than 170 roles in her repertoire, giving her ample material to create a unique program for each city. But in any version of “Forces of Nature,” the essence remains the same: a one-of-a-kind performance in which the leading heroine demonstrates both flawless pointe technique and complete mastery of contemporary dance, as well as remarkable acting skill and explosive energy.

Osipova, the recipient of virtually every major ballet award, including the Benois de la Danse, Dance Open, the American Leonide Massine Prize, the National Dance Awards from the Critics’ Circle in the UK (four times!), the Positano Prize (twice), and the Golden Mask (twice), is inimitable in every role she undertakes. Her dancing astonishes the imagination, her artistic charisma is extraordinary.

Ballet connoisseurs noticed Natalia even before she graduated from the Moscow Choreographic School. Lively as mercury, she seemed to radiate heat onto everything around her when she appeared on stage. In her very first season at the Bolshoi Theatre, she performed eight solo roles, although she had been accepted into the company as a corps de ballet dancer. At that time, she took on any role—she simply wanted to dance. “I was a wild creature!” Natalia recalls about the beginning of her career. “She was a miracle of nature,” say all who saw her early performances.

“Beg, borrow, steal, fight for tickets!”—this was how The Guardian reacted to Osipova’s sensational appearance in London. It was 2007: the Bolshoi Theatre was touring in the British capital, and chief choreographer Alexei Ratmansky played his trump card, casting Osipova as Kitri in Don Quixote. It was a triumph.

Soon New York, Paris, Milan, Berlin, and Munich lay at Osipova’s feet. The world’s leading theatres invited her. But in 2013 she made her choice, signing a permanent contract with The Royal Ballet in London.

In 2018, British documentary filmmaker Gerald Fox, a recipient of BAFTA, Prix Italia, and Grierson awards, set out to follow with his camera the creation of the new ballet The Mother featuring Natalia Osipova. But the personality of the dancer proved so vivid and compelling that the director remained behind the scenes of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden for an entire year. Thus was born the film Force of Nature. Natalia, in which the brilliant prima ballerina rehearses and performs not only The Mother by Arthur Pita, but also Medusa by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, as well as two roles—Gamzatti and Nikiya—in La Bayadère by Natalia Makarova, and the large-scale number I Am Fine in a duet with her partner, dancer and choreographer Jason Kittelberger.

Four years later, Osipova created her own “Forces of Nature”: a ballet evening of unprecedented beauty and complexity, in which she pays tribute to her signature roles and performs works created for her and even by herself. Copenhagen will see Natalia in La Fille mal gardée with Patricio Revé and in Giselle with Giorgi Potskhishvili, as well as in the extraordinary Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan by Frederick Ashton and in the one-act ballet Ashes, a joint creation by Osipova and Kittelberger.

One could come to see Osipova at least to witness her fouettés—perhaps the finest in the world. Yet “Forces of Nature” offers the audience something far greater than technical brilliance alone: the opportunity to encounter great art and to understand what a true ballet étoile of the 21st century is.