From Russia with love (of dancing)

Ksenia Parkhatskaya’s new show was developed with her Cork-born husband, writes Ellie O’Byrne.

WHEN Ksenia Parkhatskaya was 16, her mother succumbed to a long and difficult battle with cancer. Ksenia, walking the long corridor to her mother’s room in their house in St Petersburg to say her final farewell, can clearly remember the distant strains of music, playing from a local Russian jazz station called Radio Hermitage, chosen by her sister.

“I feel totally connected to that spiritual moment with my mother,” Ksenia says. “She left me, but she brought something totally new into my life which brought me to where I am now: in Barcelona, with my Irish husband. I really feel that was guided for me, because none of my jazz life was ever forced; it just happened.”