Vyacheslav Samodurov graduated from the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet (class of Gennady Selyutsky). He began his career as a dancer in 1992 with the Mariinsky Theatre. Six years later he was awarded the Gold medal at the International Ballet Competition named after Maya Plisetskaya, and became a principal dancer. Samodurov went on to perform with three major theatres: the Mariinsky in St Petersburg; London’s Royal Ballet; and Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam.

In 2006 he made his debut as choreographer. Since 2011 he has been Artistic Director of the Ural Ballet, for which he has choreographed Amore Buffo (after L’elisir d’amore by Donizetti); Cantus Arcticus to the music of Rautavaara; The Salieri Variations; Colordelic to the music of Tchaikovsky, Arvo Pärt and Francis Poulenc; Curtain to the music of Respighi; Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet (a revision of the ballet opriginally mounted for the Royal Flanders Ballet in 2014), and The Snow Queen to music by Artyom Vasiliev.

Among his other productions are: Trip Trac to the music of Shostakovich (Choreographic workshop, Covent Garden, 2010); Sonata In a Minor Key to the music of Domenico Scarlatti (Mikhailovsky Theatre, 2010); H2O (for the Second Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2012); Undine to music by Henze (Bolshoi Theatre, 2016); and Le baiser de la fée to music by Stravinsky (Perm Ballet, 2017). He has been a prize-winner of 4 ‘Golden Mask’ Theatre Awards – in the ‘Best Choreographer’ category for The Salieri Variations (2014); Colordelic (2015) and in the ‘Best Ballet Performance’ category for The Salieri Variations and Romeo and Juliet.