Daniil Simkin to arrive in Serbia in October

Published: September 26, 2025

International ballet stars Jana Salenko and Daniil Simkin will perform in Novi Sad for the first time. The world-famous dancers will be guests in the performance of „Swan Lake“, which is scheduled for October 8 at the Jovan Đorđević Grand Stage.

Daniil Simkin is probably one of the most famous ballet dancers of our time, an artist whom experts often compare to Mikhail Baryshnikov. He is coming to Serbia to support the rejuvenated ensemble of the Serbian National Theatre Ballet, together with his partner, the prima ballerina of the Berlin State Opera Ballet, Jana Salenko. Thus, the favorite performance of the Novi Sad audience, “Swan Lake” choreographed by Vladimir Logunov, will be the first classical production with which the Ballet of the oldest theater begins the season, immediately after the premiere of the contemporary choreographic diptych “Good Vibrations”, prepared by Masha Kolar and Jacopo Godani.

Born in Novosibirsk in 1987, Daniil Simkin is the son of recognized ballet dancers Dmitry Simkin and Olga Alexandrova. His family moved to Wiesbaden in 1990, where Daniil grew up. At the age of nine, he began practicing daily with his mother. This intensive training lasted for a full ten years, during which he won numerous significant ballet awards, including the Gold Medal at the Jackson International Ballet Competition in 2006, the Grand Prix at the Helsinki International Ballet Competition in 2005, and the Gold Medal at the Varna International Ballet Competition in 2004. After graduating from high school in Germany, Danil joined the Vienna State Opera Ballet as a soloist in 2006 and began a career as a guest artist performing around the world. He moved to New York in 2008 to join the American Ballet Theatre as a soloist. He was awarded the status of Ballet Champion in 2012. Since then, he has performed leading roles in classical and neoclassical works from the company’s rich repertoire. Throughout his career, Daniil Simkin has performed throughout North and South America, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2015, he directed and produced an evening of contemporary original choreography called “Intensio” with the Joyce Theatre in New York, as well as touring the program around the world. This was followed in 2017 by the production of a multidisciplinary art installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, which included generative video projections and costumes by Dior. During the 2018/19 season, Daniil Simkin joined the Staatsballett Berlin as a ballet master, but also maintained his position with the American Ballet Theatre in New York, performing with both companies.

In 2021, Simkin founded the production house Studio Simkin to explore and develop the possibilities of artistic dance with the highest production value and artistic standard, encouraging ballet art to develop in a digital environment and for new generations of audiences.

Born in Kiev, Yana Salenko began her career as the youngest dancer of the Donetsk Ballet, taking on all the main roles at the age of just 16. In 2001, she became the first dancer of the Kiev Opera Ballet, and in 2007, the first dancer of the Berlin State Ballet. Her repertoire with the Berlin State Ballet includes Vladimir Malakov’s Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, Nacho Duat’s Sleeping Beauty, Patrice Barthes’ The Nutcracker, John Cranko’s Onegin and Romeo and Juliet, George Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky’s Pas de Deux, and Peter Schaufuss’s La Sylphide.

Salenko is currently a guest principal dancer at the Royal Ballet in London, where she made her debut as Kitri in Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote in 2013. She won the gold medal and the Diaghilev Prize at the Serge Lifar International Ballet Competition in 2002, the gold medal at the ÖTR Competition in Vienna in 2004, the gold medal and the Natalia Makarova Prize at the Arabesque Ballet Competition, and third prize at the Varna International Ballet Competition. The following year, she was awarded gold medals at the Helsinki and Nagoya International Ballet Competitions. She won awards at the Dance Open International Festival in 2012, 2014, and 2016. The Italian magazine Danza&Danza named her Dancer of the Year in 2016. Salenko regularly performs as a guest artist around the world, with companies such as the Royal Ballet in London, the English National Ballet, the Hong Kong Ballet, the Tokyo Ballet, or on stages in Florence, Munich, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rome, New York…