Taking years to produce, Moscow Festival Ballet’s Cinderella is a Russian interpretation of the tale Cinderella.

Sergei Radchenko, a dancer from the Bolshoi Ballet, founded the travelling ballet company in 1989. This ballet has completed five tours across Europe and five in the United States. This four and a half month tour will complete their sixth tour in the U.S.

“We have six ballets on the tour. The presenters are given a choice of which ballet they’d like to present to their public,” said Alexander Daev, the Ballet Master of the Moscow Festival Ballet, through an interpreter. 

The ballet begins with Cinderella, her stepsisters, stepmother and father. While Cinderella and her father reminisce about her deceased mother, her stepsisters pull them away.

While the stepsisters prepare for the ball a fairy godmother gives Cinderella a beautiful gown and glass slippers while the four Fairies of Spring perform for her.

At the ball the prince is dancing with Cinderella’s stepsisters until he sees her enter. The prince falls in love with her but is only able to dance with Cinderella for a short while before her clothes turn to rags.

The prince returns to Cinderella’s house with a glass slipper she had left behind to see if he could find the woman he danced with the night before. While the stepsisters are trying on the shoe Cinderella accidentally drops the other matching shoe from her pocket.

The prince asks Cinderella to marry him and the ballet ends with a romantic dance.

The dancers wear traditional ballet costumes that are designed to represent the time period in which the story would have taken place, while still allowing the dancers to properly move.

The 40 cast members that make up the ballet must prove that they are up to the standards of the Moscow Festival Ballet. The dancer must take ballet classes with the company. 

While every show the company performs has been practiced for years, the cast still rehearses before the show. On tour the cast members will practice for two to three hours per day.

“We are looking forward to our performance in Ames. We have performed at Stephens Auditorium in the past and we find the audience to be warm and appreciative,” said Daev through an interpreter. 

The Moscow Festival Ballet comes to Stephens Auditorium at 3 p.m Sunday. Tickets can be bought online at Ticketmaster or at the north entrance of Stephens Auditorium from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.