Valeria Chaykina
Company Artist with the Joffrey since 2015
Biography
Valeria Chaykina was born in Podporozhye, a small town in Russia. At the age of seven she moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, to receive her ballet education at the Vaganova Ballet Academy. Throughout the years of her training at the Academy, she worked with great teachers and the stars of the Russian ballet like Konstantin Zaklinsky and Altynai Asylmuratova. Chaykina has also performed at the Mariinsky Theatre with The Academy and danced the main role of Marie in Vaganova’s The Nutcracker at the age of 13.
After graduating The Academy in 2012, she joined Leonid Jacobson St. Petersburg State Academic Ballet Theatre as a soloist and has performed several roles in classical ballets including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and Giselle.
In 2013, Chaykina moved to Moscow where she joined Moscow Ballet, also as a soloist, and toured around the world performing in theaters in Spain, Italy, Japan, and Lebanon.
In 2014 Chaykina came to America to train in Balanchine technique and was accepted at the Miami City Ballet School on a full scholarship. While there, she trained with Lourdes Lopez, Geta Constantinescu, Olivier Pardina and danced principal roles including George Balanchine's Western Symphony (Second Movement principal), Harald Lander's Études, and Mikhail Fokine's Les Sylphides.
That year, Chaykina was also chosen for the second season of Teen Vogue's Strictly Ballet online TV series and was featured in the June/July issue of Teen Vogue magazine.
In 2015, Chaykina joined The Joffrey Ballet. Since joining the Joffrey, she has performed numerous roles including Spring Fairy in Sir Frederick Ashton's Cinderella; Peasant Pas de deux in Lola DeAvila’s Giselle; Lover’s Pas de deux in Alexander Ekman’s Midsummer Night’s Dream; Trio in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's Mammatus; Spanish dance and cygnets in Christopher Wheeldon’s Swan Lake. And other great works like Myles Thatcher's Body of Your Dreams; Jerome Robbins’ Glass Pieces; George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments; Justin Peck's Year of the Rabbit and The Times Are Racing; Yuri Possokhov’s Anna Karenina; John Neumeier’s Sylvia; Christopher Wheeldon’s The Nutcracker; Nicolas Blanc’s Beyond The Shore; Alexander Ekman’s JOY; Krzysztof Pastor’s Romeo and Juliet; and Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre.
