Maria Orlova ~ Choreographer

Maria Orlova is a former competitive skater and member of the Russian national ice skating team. She has numerous competition medals, including a bronze medal from the Junior World Championships and a gold medal from the Russian National Cup.

Maria began performing professionally in 1995, and has performed lead roles in Cinderella on Ice, Sleeping Beauty on Ice, Phantom of the Opera on Ice, Carmen on Ice, Nutcracker on Ice , Peter Pan on Ice and Swan Lake on Ice

Maria created choreography for the Imperial Ice Stars’ 2004-2006 world tour of The Sleeping Beauty on Ice and also the award winning world tour of Swan Lake on Ice and has also created choreography for the Imperial Ice Stars appearances on Russian National Television. Together with former World Champion Ilia Averbukh she has re-choreographed The Sleeping Beauty on Ice for its 2007-9 tour of Russia, France and the UK.

Maria also coached and choreographed ice dance routines for Channel One-Russia’s , Ice Age Television programme in 2007 , which was viewed by over 120million people. Maria was also invited to choreograph performances for Vladimir Putin’s birthday celebrations in St Petersburg and also the Russian Presidents Christmas Show on Red Square in 2007.

25 May 2007

What a satisfying year of touring for all the 'Imperials'. Our 2007/08 tour of Swan Lake has been a great journey so far and by this I do not mean the countries we have travelled to. After the 'Imperials' appeared to the world with our telling of Sleeping Beauty , we were so delighted by the response to that show and that it ran for almost 2 years. We were then so excited to work on Swan Lake and could all feel that Tony was creating something special. Having been an Ice Skater since my childhood, I could sense that this wasn't just going to be a typical 'ice' performance and felt very excited to be involved in this 'new style'. Even so, nobody was really ready for the public response to the show and we do feel privelaged each night to share our feelings with you.

Our tour in the UK has been lovely, the response both critically and publicly has been very kind and warm that it does make me feel sad to leave but at the same time excited to be taking our show to new countries were we hope to receive that same response. Lets hope.

Thank you for your concerns over my injury. I have been upset to miss performing but have enjoyed the time behind the scenes in helping our new members adapt to our way of performing and am looking forward to being back on stage in Llandudno.

Thank you everyone who has taken the time to write and send the very nice messages and thank you everyone who came to see our show.

My Love to you

Marsha

20 November 2006

Hello. You can get in touch with me or any of the other Imperial Ice Stars via the messageboard - where we will try to answer all of your questions as soon as we can. Please come back regularly to keep up to date with the latest tour news. Really look forward to hearing from you.

Maria