Nadezhda Nadezhdina

Nadezhda Sergeevna Nadezhdina was a Russian and Soviet choreographer, ballerina, and former director of the Russian female dance troupe Beryozka from its inception in 1948 until her death. She is the daughter of prominent writer Aleksandra Iakovlevna Brushtein. She is known for the way she taught her dancers to move across a stage without seeming to move their feet. Beneath long, nearly floor-length gowns, her dancers learned to walk on the very tips of their toes, resulting in the impression that they are floating or gliding across the stage. She was the winner of the Stalin Prize of the third degree in 1950 and the Frederic Joliot-Curie Prize in 1959.