Vladimir Malakhov - this widely acclaimed winner of numerous prizes and “dancer of the century” delights his public through the rare combination of technical brilliance and lyrical eloquence. His supple, androgynous body combines “power and purity, fl ash and elegance, melodrama and eye-bobbling academic precision” (New York Times) - when he leaps, gravity seems suspended. Yet he remains driven to achieve great purity in his dance. Dieter Blum has succeeded in capturing the movement of this extraordinary artist in photographs that refl ect this purity and simultaneously provide a deep insight into the personality of the ensemble. Vladimir Malakhov was born in 1968 in Krivoi Rog in eastern Ukraine. He began ballet training at the age of four. At ten he moved to the famous Choreographic Institute of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and in 1986 he was engaged as the youngest soloist at the renowned Moscow Classic Ballet. In 1992 he received a prestigious engagement at the Vienna State Opera Ballet, and also acquired Austrian citizenship. In the following years he moved to (among other celebrated institutions) the National Ballet of Canada (1994), the Stuttgart Ballet, and the American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Since 2004 Vladimir Malakhov has been Artistic Director and Ballet Director at the Berlin State Ballet.

Dieter Blum began his career as a photographer at a young age. Since 1964 he has worked freelance for magazines such as Der Spiegel, Stern, Time, and Vanity Fair. He became known to a wider public in particular through his images for a global advertising campaign for Marlboro cigarettes. For more than 20 years Blum has.