I really love this pre-holiday winter time and all its accompanying rituals and symbols. I like to decorate the Christmas tree and the house, to buy gifts. And I just love the Nutcracker ballet.
And today I want to watch it with you not from the stage, but from behind the scenes.
I took these photos and videos at the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theater in December 2017.
They were included in the Fouetté the Georgian way series published later in 2018. It is a three-piece photo story about Georgian ballet I made for JAMnews. I will be glad if you read it: https://jam-news.net/fouette-the-georgian-way/
Behind every performance there are hundreds of hours of rehearsals, harsh competitions, injuries and drama.
Behind each ballet soloist there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of corps de ballet dancers, who will never get a chance to perform solo.
And it's not about their professionalism, many of the artists I spoke to said that luck is the main component for career success in ballet.
It's hard for me to imagine the bitterness that people feel when they're just not lucky enough to become truly visible on stage.
Ballet is not just a profession. It is a profession that one must choose at an age which is not designed for making serious decisions.
The choice in favor of professional ballet must be made in childhood. After making this decision, a child has to refuse many other things.
Already in primary school, young ballerinas rehearse for at least 5 hours a day. Many kids do not have enough time and effort to learn something beyond ballet and they do not have a free space for other interests or hobbies.
Ballet is a very old-fashioned art in a way. Even modeling business, an industry which is known to be very demanding on the standards of female attractiveness, has slightly pushed the boundaries. But ballet remains as strict with women as it was centuries ago.
Ballerinas have to constantly control their weight and closely monitor their appearance. It often happens that a girl dreaming of ballet has to give it up after several years of hard work because of her grown breasts – larger than accepted for ballerinas.
One of my interviewees, an experienced ballerina in the past, and now a ballet teacher in Tbilisi, said that when girls are admitted to a choreographic school, the selection committee looks not only at the girls, but also at their mothers. "And it would be better if they came with their grandmothers." And I'm not sure the woman was joking!
Once in my childhood, I myself dreamed of becoming a ballerina and, perhaps, I still feel jealous of dancers a little. Perhaps that is why I so carefully list all the “cons” of the ballet.
But all my "cons" are shattered every time I see how happy dancers are after a performance. Surely this is a great joy that gives you a lot of energy and, probably, redeems all the difficulties of the profession.
The recognized stars, the corps de ballet, all technical staff – everyone who had relation to the performance do feel that sparkling joy.
It even was transmitted to me, although I simply watched people doing their work :)
I hope you liked the pictures, make sure you read my article too. Have a wonderful holidays and a peaceful winter!