Valery Panov

Valery Panov was born in 1938 in Vitebsk

Panov was born in 1938 in Vitebsk, then part of the Soviet Union, to Jewish parents. His birth name was Valery Shulman. He later took the surname Panov from his first wife.

He trained at the Vaganova School in Leningrad and also studied in Moscow. He completed his studies in Leningrad in 1957.

He danced with the Maly Ballet in Leningrad from 1957 to 1964 and with the Kirov from 1964 to 1972, creating roles such as the title role in Hamlet. In 1972 he and his second wife Galina asked to emigrate to Israel. They were dismissed from the Kirov, he was briefly jailed, and they were allowed to leave in 1974.

In Israel the couple danced with the Batsheva and Bat-Dor companies from 1974 to 1977. From 1977 to 1983 he worked with the Berlin Opera Ballet, and from 1984 to 1986 he was artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders. He also staged works in San Francisco, Vienna, Sweden, Norway and Istanbul.

In 1993 he set up a ballet troupe at the Ashdod Art Centre, and in 1998 he founded the Panov Ballet Theatre in Ashdod with his third wife. He had 3 sons. He died in 2025.