“Founded nearly 70 years ago by the husband and wife team of Iliko Sukhishvili and Nino Ramishvili and initially named the Georgian State Dance Company, the troupe” – currently called the Georgian National Ballet and not to be confused with Nina Ananiashvili’s State Ballet of Georgia – “has travelled from the back offices of suspicious state and party officials in 1945 to some of the greatest stages in the world.”