About Daria:
Daria Olefirenko is a ballet soloist, winner of international ballet competitions, teacher, and choreographer. As a ballerina and coach, she treats audiences as equals, welcoming them into the dance world with passion, intelligence, inspiration, and humor.
After the pandemic, a new phase in Daria’s life is dedicated to improving the human condition, both physically and mentally. Daria is passionate about sharing her love to dance, creativity, respect for your body and discovering your personal inner world. “Daria’s artistry awakens in you both the dreamer and the creator of your inner self”.
Daria is currently a freelance artist who shares her knowledge and personal experience with youngsters and elders, professional and amateurs. The 10 years teaching experience has already brought many personal and professional achievements to her students. Young pupils won international dance competitions and were accepted to professional ballet schools in Kyiv, Minsk, Vilnius and Berlin.
Little story short or if you want to know more
Having a dream
Daria started dancing at the age of 3. She fell in love with this art and never stopped since then. She participated in numerous junior competitions in Ukraine and after winning at the Fouette Artek Ballet Competition she has been accepted to the professional state ballet school in Kyiv, to the class of Maryna Dobriakova.
During this time she became a finalist and winner of international ballet competitions:
- YAGP (New York, USA)
- Gold Pointe (Szczecin, Poland)
- Young Ballet of the world (Sochi, Russia)
- International Ballet Competition and Contest of Choreographers (Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, Russia)
Discovering new dance styles
After graduation, she went to Ballet West summer Intensive program where she worked with choreographers and teachers from New York City Ballet, Ballet West, and Joffrey Ballet.
She continued her education in St. Pölten Europe Ballet Conservatory (Austria) and received the diploma “Bühnentänzerin” in Vienna, Austria.
In 2014 she completed her Bachelor’s degree of Arts at the Pedagogical University in Kyiv, Ukraine. The content of the degree dealt with choreographing, training science, pedagogy, and psychology specifically for dance.
Professional ballet dancer
She was accepted to Prague State opera, was a guest soloist at the Royal Russian Ballet, and worked with Lithuanian National Opera and ballet theatre till 2020.
Her repertoire includes soloist roles in classical, neoclassical, and modern ballets. Such as “Don Quixote”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Swan Lake”, “Nutcracker”, “Le Corsaire”, “Esmeralda”, “Who cares?”, “Piaf” and others.
During her artistic career, she performed in Austria, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Czech Republic, South Korea, India, China, Colombia, Venezuela, the USA, and Canada.
Worked with world-famous choreographers, such as Midu El Gohary, Vasily Medvedev, Krzysztof Pastor, Michael Corder, and others.
Choreographing
Daria is a very creative person and while dancing in the company, she also experimented with choreographing. She has worked with the principal dancer of LNOBT Olga Konoshenko, who performed her choreography piece at the Gala of stars in Riga, Latvia.
Professional dancers represented her choreography pieces in a festival of young choreographers Creative Impulse (Kūrybinis impulsas), for 4 years in a row (Vilnius, Lithuania).
This project brought real experience in directing the production, working with scenography, costume designers, and stage lighting. During these times the cooperation with composers Alexander Peskanov and Egor Grushin opened new vision and feeling of the music.
She was awarded for creativity and the art of conveying literary drama in choreography twice.
As a choreographer and dancer, she participated in a few commercial and different art projects.
Pedagogue
At the age of 18, Daria was asked to replace the classical dance teacher at the Kyiv Choreographic College. This is where Daria’s teaching experience began. In parallel with the 8 hours of rehearsals in the theater, she always found time for individual lessons. So in 2014, she led a class at Olga Konoshenko’s ballet studio. She choreographed pieces for concerts, prepared children for professional and amateur competitions, and prepared children for acceptance to professional ballet schools.
In Germany, she was a guest teacher at several ballet schools. Today, she still collaborates with a few dance schools, is the founder of the DO-ballet community, writes her own teaching programs, and teaches her classes online and in the studio.
“I teach my students and pupils to love what they do, trust and enjoy the process. I keep long-lasting relationships with many of my students around the world. The most important thing to me is to be the person you can trust. I believe that success comes only with the trust and mutual respect between teacher and student.”
Charity
Daria is always open for charity projects and protects human rights. Back in Vilnius, she participated in the charity event “Blossom of hope”, IWAV’s annual campaign to improve breast cancer care in Lithuania. For more information and cooperation click here.
