Elvira Tarassova
Principal Dancer, Kirov Ballet

	Elvira Tarassova Outside the Maryinsky Theatre

by Jack Walker

It has always amazed me — the contradiction between the frail look of a ballerina on stage and her physical, mental, and emotional strength.

So, when I'm on my way to talk to one of these ladies, it's fitting that Yuri, her husband, meets me at the Metro, and we have to tramp in the dark for 20 minutes, over broken sidewalks, slicked by ice, a stiff, freezing wind at our face, to get to their apartment. This is Russia — home of the ballet, home of the survivor.

Finally, up a couple of flights of concrete steps — Yuri knocks, "Knock! knock!"

"Kto tam? (Who's there?)," her muffled shout comes out.

"Eta ya! (It's me)," Yuri sharply hollers back.

She opens the door. There are sparkles in her giant extra-terrestrial eyes.

Inside is clean, fresh, and light. The flat has everything precisely in its place. We leave our shoes at the front door, and go to the kitchen, the official meeting hall of every Russian home.

Elvira has prepared a dinner — with fresh salad, tomatoes, cucumbers, and main-course food, too. It's delicious.

We talk some and laugh a lot. She is getting over the flu, the brand that devastated everyone this season. But she will dance in a few days — Kitri. She says assuredly she'll be ready — a tick of unflinching silence confirms it.

I love her voice. It's expressive. One moment, when she's annoyed with herself, she booms like a carnival barker. She could have been an Elizabethan actress.

A second later when she talks about something she believes in, she tones pleasantly, smoothly, and terribly convincingly.

In a special moment, she turns to Yuri — I don't hear the words, just the softness and sweetness of the sounds — and whatever she says, it makes him smile like he is deeply in love.

So then, here below, in the interview, are all the things Elvira Tarassova told me about ballet, about being a dancer, about the life in this career. For the first time ever I got a real sense of how the sometimes firey, yet still frail and delicate creature we see on stage mixes-in with the tough, strong-willed, backstage professional survivor.

Walker:
My first question: Where and when were you born?

Tarassova:
I was born in Leningrad.

And when — is that a secret?

Not at all. I was born in 1969.

That’s impossible. You look about 22 years old.

[laughing] We all look like this.

Is it the "good Russian life" that does it?

No, it’s the good ballet life.

I remember a TV interview a few years ago in which a leading Kirov principal talked about food no matter what the questions was. He might be asked, "What's it like to dance Don Quixote?" — and he might answer, "It's okay if you have the money to buy a steak after the performance." He seemed to give the impression that there were a lot of basic problems for the dancers? Is the situation better now than it was then?

Yes. And for me things are better, because five years ago I became a soloist, a principal dancer. I began to dance leading roles and some solo parts, though sometimes I was still in the corps de ballet.

How much did you get paid then?

Five years ago, wasn’t a corps dancer making about $60 a month?

I'm not sure. Right now a corps de ballet dancer gets one million rubles a month, before all the taxes are taken out. [about $165 a month.]

At the Maryinsky Theatre, do the principal dancers get paid a salary or by performance?

A salary. No one gets paid by performance here.

Did you begin your ballet training at the Vaganova Academy?

Yes, except for my very first lessons.

And whose idea was it for you to audition at the Academy?

First, I was in what was called “light athletics.” But because of my weak health, my parents were advised to send me to the ballet. They were told it would be easier for me.

At first I didn’t want this. But I started some lessons, and people said I was actually good. That made me want to do it more and more — and now I can’t live without ballet.

What were you thinking about when you auditioned? How important was it for you to get into the Academy?

I wasn’t worried at all. At this time I didn’t understand, I didn’t realize it was the beginning of something that could last until the end of my life. It wasn’t until after about two years at the Academy that I became serious, that I was interested in the education.

In a videotape about the Academy, I watched nervous mothers, aunts, and grandmothers waiting with their little girls until the final selection list was put up. They looked, and if a name wasn’t there, they screamed and cried. I guess this wasn’t like your case?

I think the only one who was worrying at all about whether I would be accepted was my very first ballet teacher. She wasn’t an Academy teacher, just a teacher, and it was her idea to send me to the Academy. It was only her.

What was the audition like? What did you do?

I wasn’t accepted the first time.

No!?

They said I had flat feet. But my teacher was really persistent.

For one year I did preparation study at the Academy — and at the end of that year, I finally got accepted officially.

Studying there you spend the whole day, studying ballet as well as the humanities, sciences, everything, like in normal school.

What did you wear the first couple of years to ballet classes?

We were really poor at that time. Now they wear nice suits, made of excellent material, but at that time, our moms made our clothes by hand.

Your mothers made your ballet clothes?

Yes.

What was your favorite class at school, other than ballet classes?

At first it was history. But when history became political science, I liked it less. Then I preferred literature. Maybe my favorite was French. I'm really sorry that I've forgotten most of it.

How important is history and the other subjects you learned in relation to performing ballet?

Much less attention was paid to the humanities and the sciences, but I think, absolutely, that ballet dancers should learn everything. Of course, high math, and maybe some other sciences are not needed, but for reasonable education, so you're able to think, everything is necessary.

So, ballerinas can think, not just dance?

Of course. When a person gets on stage, he has to open up — so people can see who he is. Everyone can then see the intellectual side of the dancer.

Maybe that explains why when some people "open up" I don't see very much.

[smiling] Maybe.

When did you know that you were a good dancer? Was there a time when you understood that you were one of the better students?

Well, when you get a good mark on the exam, this is the first thing that shows you are worth something. If somebody pays attention to you, like a teacher, or you get an excellent mark on the classical dance, you understand that you are doing okay.

The Vaganova School is sometimes criticized outside Russia, because it appears to take children and force them to study something very, very intensely against their will. When you were there, did you want to be out of the studios and doing other things?

No. I never felt any pressure. The same as in any school, there is a schedule for the subjects. No one pushes you here with a stick. Like everywhere, it's your own personal choice what you will get from the school.

Maybe you decide to sit at the lessons, and, as we say in Russian, "catch flies," — but that's your problem. You only harm yourself if you're not there to learn something.

In ballet classes was there a lot of pressure on the students to do things the right way?

Maybe there are some personalities in ballet history who had to be forced, who were maybe lazy. Anyway, if I were to speak about my class, when I studied, in our professional subjects, we always knew what we needed to do. For our future profession we worked hard and spent all our energy. But we did so because we wanted to. We understood that we were working toward the goal of our lives — the goal we wanted and waited for.

You understood all this as a child?

Nobody told us, "Do it again, do it again." We said it ourselves, "Let's do it again, let's do it again."

Teaching the senior classes was a row of big names. In the professional and character classes we had very good teachers.

Our classical teacher was Zubkovskaya. She was a very famous ballerina and a very beautiful woman. She was a strong-willed woman, and she never had to repeat her instructions, like telling us to stand up straight. She was constantly keeping us correct, our positions, our movements, telling us everything, every detail, to do.

Was she mean to the students?

No, not at all. She is a beautiful person. She could just look at you and you understood the way you were to do what she said.

Of course, in general, like everywhere, somebody yelled at us a little bit once in awhile, like with any kid. But nobody ever forced us -- or used force with us.

When did you start working on pointe?

We got on our toes, on pointe, the second year of school. That was after a full year of classes, six days a week.

When you first began, how much time did you spend on pointe during a class?

Everyday we had classical class for two hours.

You were on pointe for two hours?

No, of course not. It was step-by-step. Naturally, we wanted to get on pointe as quickly as possible and really do something, but some kids want to fly to the moon.

Without our teacher, Lyudmila Komisarova, we wouldn't have been able to do anything. She explained everything to us, showed us everything. The first teacher is very important.

Do you remember any of students having problems with their feet when going on pointe?

No. Everybody got on their toes.

No injuries or serious problems then?

No, no. No injuries. But some people could dance well on pointe, and some people were not so good.

Once you were on pointe, did you do the entire classical class in pointe shoes?

No, in the first year we went on our toes, we wore soft shoes when we were working at the barre, center floor, and for the jumps. After all this, we put on the pointe shoes. We did some exercises to make the feet stronger, and we did some special gymnastics.

The reason I ask is because Kurgapkina had a class where she had the students wear pointe shoes for everything. Instead of soft shoes, the girls wore pointe shoes with the stiff bottoms ripped off.

Yes, I know, I know. They were exercising in soft shoes, and then one day, they changed into pointe shoes and never changed back. They did everything — the barre, center floor, and, of course, the classical dance. They worked that way everyday.

It's a very good practice, very useful, especially at school. Because later, when you become an actor, a principal dancer, after your class you have rehearsal, and you have to do everything on pointe.

In school not every student gets a lot of stage experience, and it's very important to have this work in the shoes you'll wear for performances. School is the place to learn the technique of wearing and dancing in pointe shoes.

Ruzimatov told me that in school the boys have strong competition among themselves. Is it the same with the girls?

You mean like who can do the most tours? fouettés? Yes, it exists.

Sometimes we would get to class early. Maybe we had changed quicker than usual. The class might start at one 1:00, but twenty minutes before we were in the hall. We would play to see who could make the most tours or fouettés. Obviously we were really young and talented, we could jump and stay at exactly the same place, and we could go on for a long time.

When the class was to start and the teacher came, all of us were already soaking wet.

Obviously, in an eight-year professional school, some students don't finish. What was the situation when someone dropped out? Was he or she treated badly by the others?

No, not badly. And I think there were several reasons someone didn't finish. A student maybe wasn't really suited for ballet, physically or mentally, or they didn't have the right kind of talent when it got more complicated, or maybe they were really talented, but just weren't interested enough, or maybe just plain didn't like ballet.

It was better if they left the Academy early. That way he they could find himself or herself a good life someplace, a life that suits them, and there psychology and emotions don't get broken.

However, it's very, very difficult for someone getting out a year before graduation, after seven years of study.

I think it would be crushing.

Yes. To get dropped after seven years would be — uh — not good. But if it's earlier, and ballet's just not your thing, and you don't like it, it's much better to get out earlier.

How many people started in your class?

In our year there were three classes — A, B, and C. The average class had quite a few people. But over time, people dropped, and by the end of the third year, my class had only ten girls and ten boys.

Out of how many who began?

Somewhere around forty. I don't remember the exact number.

About half dropped.

Yes, for different reasons, about half left.

And all the rest finished?

Yes. From our class, some of the boys are working in the United States, right now.

For example...

Viktor Plodnikov works in Boston. Alexei Sharoff works in a smaller town, I don't remember the name right now. And there's another one who's in the U.S.

How about the girls from your class?

A few of them are working in the Maryinsky Theatre. My friend Larissa Lezhnina is working at the Dutch National Ballet Company. A few girls work at the Maly Ballet. The rest are in the smaller companies in St. Petersburg.

One of the girls graduated, but didn't find a job in Leningrad, so she tried to find a job in another town. That didn't work out, either, so she came back to St. Petersburg, she went back to school, got a science degree, and she works as a scientist now.