Russia's Bolshoi, performing in China, vows to return to the West

BEIJING (Reuters) - The artistic director of Moscow's state-owned Bolshoi Ballet has vowed that his company will eventually perform in the West again, having been subject to a cultural boycott since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The storied ballet company performed at Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts on Tuesday in its first international tour since the pandemic.

Speaking in Beijing on the eve of the performance, artistic director Makhar Vaziev insisted the troupe was "not suffering" from being unable to perform in the West.

"I have no doubt that one day everything will go back to how it should be because culture is a wave that is very hard to suppress," Vaziev, 62, said in an interview.

"Many governments have banned cultural figures from Russia...but we are still talking to the same people we talked to in the past."

The Bolshoi's dancers hope their performances will herald a return to the global stage for the crown jewel of Russian culture, which toured the world even in the most tense days of the Cold War.

But the company only has two further confirmed international stops so far: the Belarusian capital Minsk in November, and Oman in January 2024.

The theatre, founded in 1776 by Empress Catherine the Great, will showcase excerpts of some of its best-known ballet works in two gala performances in Beijing, followed by a three-day staging of the 19th century ballet "Don Quixote".

It still receives around 70 percent of its funding from the Russian government, according to the company's PR representative. No performers have so far publicly condemned President Vladimir Putin's war, which has caused an estimated 8,500 civilian casualties according to the U.N.

Reuters was asked to avoid political questions during interviews with members of the troupe.

In February 2022, the day after Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine, London's Royal Opera House called off the Bolshoi's planned post-pandemic return for a residency scheduled for that summer.

Cancellations in other Western cities soon followed, and creative collaboration with Western venues and choreographers evaporated.

Several Russian and foreign leading dancers also quit the company in opposition to the Ukraine war, including former principal ballerina Olga Smirnova.

"I would really like to visit other countries, see the world, and get to know different venues, theatres, teachers and choreographers," said principal dancer Elizaveta Kokoreva, who joined the company at the beginning of the pandemic.

"But it is what it is right now."

(Reporting by Laurie Chen; Editing by John Geddie and Raju gopalakrishnan)