Maria Tyukova
Owner / Director/ Instructor
Maria will be teaching
Ballet, Pointe, Classical Variations, Conditioning
About Maria
Born into an artistic family (both parents were Principal dancers), Ms. Tyukova’s first appearance on stage was at the young age of 5 in the opera Chio Chio San and she loved every minute of it.
In 1990, Ms. Tyukova was enrolled in the Perm State Ballet Academy where she studied and graduated under Ninel Silvanovich who had been a direct student of Agrippina Vaganova.
At the beginning of her professional career, Ms. Tyukova was invited to be a model for the famous Russian theatrical designer, Alla Kozhenkova. In 1998, she joined the Perm Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre and danced in their classical repertoire and toured extensively around the world.
In 2001, Ms. Tyukova moved to the United States and was hired to dance for Ballet Internationale under the artistic direction of Eldar Aliev. It was during this time that she was working with Irina Kolpakova, one of the greatest ballerinas during the Soviet era. She also was lucky to be trained with well known teachers Vladilen Semionov and Tatiana Pali. Maria danced as a soloist in Carmen, La Fille mal gardee, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Giselle, Phaedra, Nutcracker, La Corsaire, Sleeping Beauty, Firebird, Stars and Stripes and many other performances . She toured to Los Angeles, New York, Detroit in the US and also to Canada, Taiwan, China and Korea. Ms. Tyukova performed with Opera Detroit and was a Guest Artist with University Ballet, Korea performing in New York and Washington in La Bayadere.
From 2003-2005, Ms. Tyukova worked at the Pan American Skating Arena in Indianapolis, IN with world-class figure skating coach, Serguei Zaitsev. She began working as a figure skating coach while in Russia under the direction of her in-laws, who are both world famous Russian coaches. To this day, Maria enjoys training many figure skaters in Colorado. In 2006, she joined the Cincinnati Ballet where she danced in both their classical and contemporary pieces alongside Val Caniparoli, former San Francisco Principal Dancer and Bart Cook, former New York City Ballet Principal Dancer and “repetiteur “for the George Balanchine Trust and the Robbins Rights Trust.
In 2007, Maria moved to Colorado where she worked with the Colorado Ballet Academy until she opened Classical Ballet of Colorado (CBC). As Co-Founder and Director of CBC, she enjoyed receiving the honor of Youth America Grand Prix’s (YAGP) Outstanding School Award in both 2013 and 2016 and has had several of her students place in YAGP’s Classical Categories, including taking 1st Place and 3rd Place. Several of her students have also received top awards at the Denver Ballet Guild Competition, including 2nd Place, 4th Place and the coveted David Parvin Award for Outstanding Artist in 2015.
After closing CBC’s doors in August, 2017, Maria partnered with her husband Alexei Tyukov to open Rocky Mountain Ballet Academy.
In 2017, Maria was honored with the YAGP Outstanding Teacher Award and her student, Roxy Slavin, was awarded the Hope Award. Maria was a judge at the 2017 World Ballet Art Competition Semi-Finals in Dallas, TX.