Eva Evdokimova (1948-2009). Swiss-born American ballerina

Eva Evdokimova trained at the Munich Opera Ballet School and The Royal Ballet School, and studied privately with Maria Fay, Vera Volkova and Natalia Dudinskaya. She joined the Royal Danish Ballet in 1966 and in 1970 won the gold medal at the Varna International Ballet Competition. Following her success there, Evdokimova then became a member of the Deutsche Oper Ballet in Berlin, which was to remain her base until 1985, whilst also worked extensively with other ballet companies around the world, including the Kirov (now Maryinsky) Ballet, London Festival (now English National) Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.

With London Festival Ballet Evdokimova worked with Rudolf Nureyev on his productions of The Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet, and performed as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Kitri in Don Quixote, Louise in The Nutcracker, The Sleepwalker in George Balanchine’s Night Shadow, Swanilda in Coppélia and Tatiana in John Cranko’s Onegin. Evdokimova was particularly associated with the Romantic ballet repertoire and excelled in roles such as Giselle; August Bournonville’s Teresina in Napoli, Elisa in Le Conservatoire, Hilda in The Folk Tale and the Sylph in La Sylphide; Mikhail Fokine’s Les Sylphides; and as “Marie Taglioni” in Anton Dolin’s reconstruction of the Pas de Quatre. After she stopped performing, Evdokimova became a distinguished teacher, ballet coach and jury member at a number of prestigious ballet competitions. She died in 2009.