angelica

Hi fellow ballet fans. I've been following ballet for the past 58 years, from the end of the careers of Danilova and Markova up to the present day. I always wanted to be a dancer but my parents did not permit me to pursue it seriously. In the days before Nureyev's famous "leap to the West," ballet was considered to be, in some circles, in the words of Boris Lermontov of Red Shoes fame, "a second-rate profession" (in the film he was speaking of ballet composers, not dancers). Certainly that's no longer true, thank goodness! I have followed most of the great companies, at least those who perform(ed) in New York; witnessed the famed partnerships of Fonteyn-Nureyev, Maximova-Vasiliev, Fracci-Bruhn, their legatees, and now, at last, Reyes-Cornejo.

After a 30-year hiatus of not taking classes, I started again a year ago January in a local studio. I'm now taking four-five classes a week. I will never recapture the height and suspension in jumps that I had 30 years ago, but I'll say this: one of the things I was regretting most about aging was the loss of the agility I had always been able to count on; but now, with ballet classes, I've regained my agility in life activities, e.g., walking, running, sitting down and getting up from the floor--abilities you take for granted until you begin to lose them.

I'm glad to be a new member of Ballet Talk and look forward to reading posts from those who adore ballet as much as I do!

Angelica