| | | Gods athletes
copy and paste:
cbsnews.com[/url]
How Russia's invasion of Ukraine is reverberating on the world's ballet stages.
By Jon Wertheim. January 22, 2023 / 6:53 PM /
JANUARY 22, 2023 / 6:53 PM / CBS NEWS
For decades now, Russians have known the drill. When there's bad news brewing, such as the death of a leader, or a convulsive event, such as the Chernobyl disaster, State TV switches its programming and begins airing Tchaikovsky's ballet, "Swan Lake." Nothing to see her folks. But also note the choice of distraction. Ballet is centrally important to Russian society and to Russian image. Dancers slicing through the air and challenging laws of physics and gravity represent civility and grace. But, last February, when Russian military troops invaded Ukraine, Russian ballet troupes had their western tours cancelled and Moscow's Bolshoi theater has shuttered shows by directors critical of Putin's war. As we first reported last year, this brutal war plays out on the most delicate of fronts, leaving ballet in exile.
When ballet dancers are described as God's athletes, well, you could offer up Olga
Smirnova as supporting evidence. She treads on air, coming in on little cat feet. She's a Russian prima ballerina—one of the world's leading dancers. But days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Smirnova pirouetted and stepped off her stage at the renowned Bolshoi Theater, with dramatic flourish. She took to social media to express her outrage. And then fled the country, the modern-day version of Nureyev or Baryshnikov defecting.
Jon Wertheim: When you sat down to write that social media post, what did you want to communicate? What did you want to say?
Olga Smirnova: I just couldn't keep it inside. I was so ashamed of Russia. This is the true. I'm not ashamed that I'm Russian, but I'm ashamed because of Russia started this action.
 Olga SmirnovaJon Wertheim: I want to read what you wrote. You said you were against this war with every fiber of your being." But I now feel that a line has been drawn that separates the before and the after."
Olga Smirnova: It's how I felt. 24th of February, this is, was the line, Because it's all changed. All changed. The reputation of Russia and Russian people, even if you are not a soldier, you're just Russian. It, it's all, it still make a shadow on you.
Jon Wertheim: Being Russian.
Olga Smirnova: Being Russian. And it's, it's really painful.
Predictably, Smirnova's post went viral. She was, after all, a leading light at Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet. From the Russian word for "big," Bolshoi is the world's largest ballet company and the most prestigious. The theater is physically close to the Kremlin—a short walk away—and also aligned inextricably with the Russian government. Tsars loved the Bolshoi. For decades, Communist leaders used the Bolshoi theater for political stagecraft, holding rallies and giving national addresses there.
Alexei Ratmansky: This is something that celebrates Russia. Every important guest who would visit Soviet Union would be invited to the Bolshoi, see the performance. And that was a pride of, of Russia at any time.
 Alexei RatmanskyAlexei Ratmansky trained at the Bolshoi school and was for a time its artistic director. He was born in Russia, but grew up in Kyiv, where his parents still live. At the time of the invasion, he was in Russia choreographing two ballets. He left the country immediately, unwilling to continue working in a world so tied to the Putin regime.
Alexei Ratmansky: As I was going in a taxi to the airport, I felt these two ca-- sand castles falling apart behind my back.
Jon Wertheim: Those sand castles were the work-- the work you had done
Alexei Ratmansky: Yes, yes, yes. It was an agony. It was a very hard day.
Ballet: A theater of the war in Ukraine
And, of course, a catastrophic day for Ukraine. Indiscriminate bombings and missile strikes raining down upon the country, crushing lives and dreams... not least those of an ascendant ballerina from Kyiv, Polina Chepyk, age 17.
Jon Wertheim: You wanted to be a ballerina for years and years. What was it like when suddenly you couldn't-- couldn't go to school, couldn't dance?
Polina Chepyk: I was shocked. And I'm like, "Oh my God." And first about what I'm thinking that I left my pointe shoes in college. It was my fir—
Jon Wertheim: That was your first thought?
Polina Chepyk: Yes.
Jon Wertheim: You left your pointe shoes at school.
Polina Chepyk: Yes. I left everything actually.
 Polina ChepykWar didn't stop her in her footsteps. She resumed dancing at home, using whatever she could as a barre. But after a few days, her parents—both former dancers—focused on getting Polina out. They called on a famously well-connected figure in the tight knit ballet community: New Jersey-based Larissa Saveliev.
Jon Wertheim: You're getting this barrage of emails from-- from parents and from dancers. What-- what are they-- what are telling you? What are they asking you?
Larissa Saveliev: Oh, "please help… get us out of here." They're willing to give up everything else, but they have to dance. And the parents were-- you know, "It doesn't matter what we do, they have to dance."
Jon Wertheim: This was their-- their lifeline almost.
Larissa Saveliev: This is it. They just-- they-- they could not imagine not dance.
In the 1990s, she founded Youth America Grand Prix, a ballet competition and scholarship program, pairing aspiring dancers with ballet schools worldwide.
Now, in a humanitarian crisis, she—and the international ballet community—scrambled to action. Saveliev tapped her vast network, relocating more than a hundred young Ukrainian dancers to new schools and host families.
Larissa Saveliev: We give each child a number, just to move faster. And we say, "okay, number 55 is, like-- just get a spot in Stuttgart, okay. Okay, number 54 just get a spot in-- Dresden."
Jon Wertheim: Cross it off the list. |
|
