Julia Levina Shares her Passion for Ballet with Local Youth

Photo: Oleg Lidukhover

Julia Levina shares her passion of ballet with local youth.

Julia Levina’s idea about creating a new forum to express ideas received a pensive first response. A bit ironic, huh?

The 38-year-old Maple Grove resident and accomplished professional ballet dancer from Ukraine approached her boss, Jill Rieken of Chanhassen’s Dance Arts Centre, to introduce the concept of starting a dance company. It was 2002, and it would be a stark divergence from the competition-based format at the centre and a step toward artistic performances.

Dance Arts Centre had a 20-year track record at the time, and Rieken didn’t know if it was a good idea. In fact, she called it “almost a crazy idea.” Levina tried to level with her again and again.

“I was just afraid,” Rieken says. “She inspired me not to be.”

Following Levina’s lead, Rieken relented and consented on establishing the theater company. This year, La Danse Fatale Ballet Company will celebrate 10 years. Behind Levina as artistic director, the company will host its performance Three Dimensions February 25 and 26 at the Performing Arts Center at Eden Prairie High School.

Rieken’s understanding of Levina’s courage to uproot her family from Ukraine to move to Minnesota helped Rieken give her the green light.

“I thought about what Julia had done and where she had come from,” Rieken says. “It occurred to me what I respect and admire about her so much is her willingness to dream big and go for it. I just had that revelation, and that’s what we need to do.”

As a girl, Levina’s dream was dancing. At age 10, she enrolled at a state ballet school in the former Soviet Union city of Lvov. It was a rigorous “almost scientific approach” to ballet with critiqued performances and strict exams, Levina says.

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