Bernara Karieva

Bernara Karieva was born on 28 January 1936 in Tashkent, in the family of Rahim Qoriyev. She graduated from the Tashkent Choreographic School in 1952 and from the Moscow Choreographic School (the class of M. A. Kozhukhova) in 1955; in 1980 she also graduated from the Tashkent State Institute of Culture.

From 1955 she danced with the company of the Alisher Navoi Theatre of Opera and Ballet and became its prima ballerina. In 1957 she won a silver medal at a ballet competition in Moscow. Her repertoire included roles from the world classics — Odette-Odile in “Swan Lake”, Maria in “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”, “Giselle” and Kitri in “Don Quixote” — and from national ballets, Mehri in “Suhayl and Mehri” and Sokhani in “The Amulet of Love”. For Sokhani she received the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR in 1970.

Karieva danced the title role in Rodion Shchedrin’s ballet “Anna Karenina”; for it and for her roles in “The Stranger”, “The Poisoned Life” and “Elegy” she was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1982. She toured in Cuba, Brazil, France, England, Italy, Syria, Jamaica, India, Argentina and other countries, and films have been made about her, including “Bernara Karieva Dances” and “Ballerina”.

In 1964 she was named People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR and in 1973 People’s Artist of the USSR. In 1979–1983 she founded and led the Youth Ballet of Uzbekistan association. From 1985 to 1998 she chaired the Union of Theatre Workers of Uzbekistan; in 1989–1991 she was a People’s Deputy of the USSR and sat on the Council of Nationalities commission dealing with culture.

From 1991 she chaired the coordinating council for the theatres of South-East Asia. On her initiative the first international festival “Theatre: East–West” was held in Tashkent in 1993, with participants from 25 countries. In 1994–2002 she was director and artistic director of the Alisher Navoi Bolshoi Theatre, and from 2002 an adviser to the Minister of Culture on theatre.

She has been a professor since 1985 and now teaches in the choreography department of the State Academy of Choreography of Uzbekistan. In 2004 she opened the first private dance school in Tashkent, “Style and Dance from Bernara Karieva”. She received the Order of Friendship (“Do‘stlik”) in 1996, and the orders “Fidokorona xizmatlari uchun” in 2020 and “Mehnat shuhrati” in 2026.