Gayane (Gayaneh or Gayne, the e is pronounced; Armenian: Գայանե; Russian: Гаянэ) is a four-act ballet with music by Aram Khachaturian.

[2] The first performance took place on 9 December 1942,[3] staged by the Kirov Ballet while in Perm, Russia, during the Second World War evacuation, and was broadcast on the radio.

[4]: 57  The principal dancers were: Natalia Dudinskaya (Gayane), Nikolai Zubkovsky (Karen), Konstantin Sergeyev (Armen), Tatanya Vecheslova (Nune), and Boris Shavrov (Giko).

Khachaturian's original Gayane was the story of a young Armenian woman whose patriotic convictions conflict with her personal feelings on discovering her husband's treason.

Khachaturian started composing the score in autumn 1941[3] and the ballet was first mounted on 3 December 1942 on the small stage of the Perm state theatre.

The orchestral score calls for: Many themes of interethnic love, betrayal and friendship interact in an Armenian setting.

The central character is a young woman named Gayane, who works in a kolkhoz in a mountainous district near the national border.

They conspire to share the public money they have embezzled, to set fire to the cotton warehouse and to flee abroad.

A year later, at the kolkhoz, a dedication ceremony of the reconstructed warehouse occurs, as well as three weddings: Gayane and Kazakov, Armen and Aishe, Karen and Nune.

The ballet Gayane was modestly successful when danced before Joseph Stalin;[citation needed] performances outside the USSR have been infrequent.

The choreography was unusual for its time—classical and folk dance combined—especially the stylized use of arms and hands from the folkloric Armenian culture that is the ballet's background.

The collective farm's ethnic diversity is the backdrop for each part of the music (adagio arrangements, lively Armenian and Caucasian tunes) and for the compelling tale of love between a couple from different social classes.

In the end, Nina Anisimova proved that character dancing endures and should be included in the world of classical ballet.

Gayane is an excellent example of character dance and ballet combined; its artistic value to twentieth-century Soviet choreography is significant.

[7] The composer James Horner quoted from this same piece in three of his film scores, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and Aliens.