Gediminas Taranda
Gediminas Taranda
Ethnicity:
According to his father, Gediminas is a Lithuanian, his mother (Solovyov’s maiden name) is a Cossack.
Gediminas Taranda was born on the 26th of February, 1961 in Kaliningrad, Russian Federation, where his father Leonas served as a colonel. When the parents of Gediminas divorced, the mother moved with her children to Voronezh.
In 1974, Gediminas Taranda entered the Voronezh Choreographic School. In 1976 he entered the Moscow Choreographic School, where his teachers were I.V. Uksusnikov, A.G. Boguslavskaya.
At the Bolshoi Theater, Gediminas Taranda performed the parts of Abderakhman and Yashka as edited by Yuri Grigorovich’s performances of Raymond and the Golden Age. Main parties: Espado (Don Quixote Ludwig Minkus), Abderahman (Raymonda Alexander Glazunov), Hans, Birbanto (Giselle, Corsair Adolf Adan), Vezir (Legend of Love Arif Melikov), Severyan ("Stone Flower" Sergei Prokofiev), Carrechidor and Jose ("Carmen Suite" Georges Bizet - Rodion Shchedrin), Yashka ("Golden Age" Dmitry Shostakovich) and others.
In 1984, Gediminas Taranda first appeared on tour abroad - in Mexico. After that, he was not allowed to travel abroad for four years. In 1993, he was dismissed from the Bolshoi Theater.
In 1994 Gediminas Taranda created the troupe "Imperial Russian Ballet". There are 40 people in the troupe, 15 ballets in the theater repertoire. In 2004, he was accepted into the staff of the Mossovet Theater as an actor. Since 2012, he has been a co-founder of the Cultural and Educational Movement "Promotion of Creative Education" foundation. He is the president of the GrandPa ballet festival.
Gediminas Taranda was married three times. The first wife - ballet dancer Anastasia Drigo, daughter - Deimante (born in 2004). There is also an illegitimate daughter Elizabeth, born in 1994 as a result of a just a casual kind of thing by Gediminas Taranda and the host of the TV program Good Morning, Marina Baranova.
