5-time gold medalist Iana Salenko is one of the most famous and established ballerinas in the world. Today she is going to talk to us about her childhood in the Ukraine, about facing anorexia and a miscarriage, how she became a top prima ballerina despite a back injury, what it is like to be both a mother and ballerina and why she misses dancing with her husband on stage.
Born in Kiev, she studied at the Pisarev Ballet School in Donetsk before becoming a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet in Kiev. She is currently a guest artist at the Royal Ballet in London and a principal dancer at the Berlin State Ballet, where she dances in things such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Onegin, Romeo and Juliet and more. She has been dancing at the Berlin since 2005! She has two sons together with her husband Marian Walter, who is also a principal dancer of the Berlin State Ballet.
