About Us

Alena’s CV

Alena became interested in historical dance in 2006. She learned her first steps from Russian early dance specialists, including Olga Fialko, Ekaterina Mikhaylova-Smolnyakova, and Rostislav Kondratenko, followed by a passionate and tireless dance development, teaching numerous classes, and learning from international early dance professionals including Barbara Segal (UK, Baroque and Renaissance dances), Anne Daye (UK, Renaissance and Scottish dances), Ricky Barros (UK, Baroque dance), Karin Modigh (Sweden/France, Baroque dance), Robert le Nuz (France, Baroque dance), Charlotte Bell (UK/Germany, Baroque dance), Hubert Hazebroucq (France, Early Baroque style), Ellis Rogers (UK, Quadrilles and 19th-century dances of Great Britain), Richard Powers (USA, 19th and early 20th century dances), and Fabio Mollica (Italy, Società di Danza, 19th century dances). Alena has a wide historical dance repertoire and interests covering dances from the 1600s till 1850s.

Since 2019, Alena has actively collaborated with and performed at historical sites in Scotland, such as Georgian House (NTS), Holyrood Palace and Queens’ Gallery (Royal Collections Trust), St Cecilia’s Hall and Music Instrument Museum, Abbotsford House, Bannockburn House, Stirling Castle (HES).

Since 2022, she has been offering historical dance courses at the Adult Education Programme run by Edinburgh Council.

Alena has extensively researched the Scottish dance scene, collecting dance and dance music sources printed or written in Scotland and straining through diaries, memoirs and private letters from the 18th &19th centuries. She studies history at the University of the Highlands and Islands (MLitt in History (part-time)). Alena presented her research at international conferences and as public talks:

• Cotillions and quadrilles in Scotland in the late 18th – early 19th centuries. Early Dance Symposium: New Work on Old Dance: A Pre-1800 Dance Studies Symposium, University of Pennsylvania, February, 2024;

• Political balls in the Scottish capital between 1746 and 1822 (talk) and Dancing for the King: recreation of Strathspey for two based on the Strathspey setting steps from the ‘Contre-Danses à Paris, 1818’ (Ms 3860, NLS) (workshop), European Association for Dance History Coference, October 2022;

• Historical Accounts of the Balls Given for George IV in Edinburgh in August 1822, Early Dance Circle, Research Issues, September 2022;

• Dance Assemblies in Georgian Edinburgh. 5^th Historical Dance Symposium. Germany, June 2022
• Dance in Sir Walter Scott’s Works and Times. The Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club, April 2022;
• Scottish Reels in the 18th century. Workshop at the conference “Dance, Song, Music and Sociability 1750 -1832” run by DIGITENS EU, the Universities of Warwick, UEA, Notre Dame. March 2022;
• “Ye Jacobites by name”: Jacobite themes in Scottish dance collections of the 18^th C. Bannockburn House, January 2022; 
• Dancing in Georgian Edinburgh (blogpost). Georgian House, National Trust for Scotland, November 2021; 
• Courtly dancing in 18th-century Russia. Princes Dashkova’s Day, Royal Collection Trust, 2019.