Today is a very tragic day in the history of ballet, Judaism, Russia and feminism. The great ballerina Maya Plisetskaya has passed away at the age of 89 after suffering a heart attack.
You may pass this off as “well some old woman died, so what?” but Maya is one of the greatest, if not the greatest ballerina of the 20th century. She danced during a time when ballet was entirely different, being a ballerina was a statement, you were a celebrity on par with Beyonce. Particularly a ballerina in Russia, where ballet was most predominant.
The entire life of a ballerina then was highly speculated upon, there were rumours that destroyed entire careers, ballerinas married royalty and also ballet was growing. At this point, even the pointe shoe as we know it was primitive and still undergoing huge advancements, before it even resembled what a dancer will use today.
To be a ballet dancer is one thing, but to be ballerina is another thing. A ballerina is the title given to only the greatest female dancers and Plisetskaya was just that.
She fought passionately against the Russian government to bring in modern repertoires. At one point she was accused of betraying ballet by trying to introduce new choreography into the world.
At this time, Carmen was extremely new and for her to even try to dance it extremely dangerous. Even though Carmen is a much loved and much performed piece today, back then it was very controversial. I suppose you could say that she was the Miley Cyrus of her time. Carmen was a sexy piece, it brought in new movements and re-designed ballet– The Russian government didn’t like that.
For 16 years after joining a ballet company, she was not allowed to leave Russia and tour with the other dancers, because she descended from a Jewish family. She was pushed down, bullied and ignored and yet she refused to back down and persisted, until eventually she was able to leave the country.
Her dancing literally broke barriers between countries, she would tour the U.S. and that helped to bring a new light to Russia and help to mend relations during the cold war.
She was skilled at allegro and adagio, meaning fast and slow dance, which most dancers were one or the other. She had an incredibly flexible back. She destroyed the idea of what ballet was and recreated a new world, without which ballet may have died out.
She was even so incredible that into her 60s she was still dancing en pointe, when most dancers, even today have to retire at 40 because the pain is too much for them.
And even after her retirement, she continued to coach other dancers, including Diana Vishneva, one of the greatest living ballerinas of the 21st Century.
She was a Jew, she was a woman, she fought politicians in a time when doing so would get you killed in Russia and she was an incredible dancer. At that’s why today, the dancing world and many other cultures will mourn the death of an incredible woman.
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