Vladimir Vasiliev (dancer) Vladimir Vasiliev (dancer) Vladimir Viktorovich Vasiliev (Russian: Влади́мир Ви́кторович Васи́льев), (born April 18, 1940) is a Russian ballet dancer and choreographer from Moscow, Russia. He was a principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet and its director from 1995 to 2000. He was best known for his role of Spartacus and his powerful leaps and turns. Vladimir Vasiliev was named "God of the dance" and is regarded as a classical dancer on the same level as Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. At the height of their careers, Vladimir Vasiliev and Ekaterina Maximova were the golden couple of Russian ballet. Vladimir Vasiliev
Debra Austin (dancer) was hired by her former fellow dancer at New York City Ballet, Robert Weiss, then the artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, to be a principal dancer for the company, making her the first African-American woman to reach the rank of principal dancer in a major American ballet company. This was eight years before Lauren Anderson became a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet, even though she is commonly incorrectly accredited as being the first. At the Pennsylvania Ballet, Austin danced in "Swan Lake", "Coppélia", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Apollo", "Symphony in C", "Giselle", and "La Sylphide". She danced at