Correspondent at the Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater of Belarus Naviny . by I learned first-hand what ballet dancers wear under tights and why it is believed that many of them are gay.Read about the pregnancy of ballerinas and one day off a week in our 10 facts.

To figure out which rumors about the Belarusian ballet are true and which are pure fiction, let the correspondent Naviny. by theater artist helped Gennady Kulinkovich with ballerina assistants.

1. Are ballet dancers fragile and fluffy?

Hearing: During one performance, a ballet dancer lifts and carries about 2 tons of weight.

Is it true: The physical activity is really great. On stage - it depends on the production, of course - a ballet dancer, a man lifts the ballerina many times. In modern productions all you do is lift and set, lift and set, lift, circle, set. If you count the number of lifts, then yes, two tons is a real number.

In addition, ballet dancers rehearse and train a lot. This is also a burden. We have rehearsals every day, except for the day off, which is once a week. Plus performances.

2. Ballet dancers get sick more often

Hearing: Due to heavy workloads and constant diets, ballet dancers get sick more often than others.

Is it true: The ballet rehearsal halls of the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus are equipped bactericidal lamps like in a hospital. In winter, when the flu begins and other viruses appear, a separate worker turns on these lamps for half an hour to disinfect the room. This is very important so that diseases do not spread: we all work in close contact, train and rehearse for many hours. If someone brought a disease, then it is neutralized.

3. Occupational diseases in ballet

Hearing: Feet are the most painful place on a dancer’s body.

Is it true: This is partly true. Occupational diseases of dancers are diseases of the joints. Ballet dancers have bones protruding thumbs legs, joints become inflamed and naturally hurt. Women also have this disease, but it is caused by uncomfortable, tight shoes that deform the foot. For ballet masters, there is constant stress on the toes and forefoot: many movements in ballet are performed on the toes.

The second common class of health problems is prolapse of internal organs from constant jumping. Everything is individual, but often the kidneys, heart, and other internal organs, which subsequently put pressure on the bladder.

4. Young pensioners

Hearing: Some people think that ballerinas retire too early.

Is it true. By law, ballet dancers retire after having 23 years of work experience. Maternity leave time is not counted towards length of service. As a result, ballet dancers become young pensioners. However, many of them do not actually retire: depending on their state of health, retired dancers work as tutors, teachers, stage managers, stage workers, costume designers, etc.

To the interlocutor Naviny. by Gennady Kulinkovich has two years left until retirement. In the future, the dancer also plans to engage in teaching.

5. Abnormal operation

Hearing: Ballet theater artists have two days off a week, just like ordinary citizens

Is it true. Ballet dancers work 6 days a week. There is only one day off - Monday. On summer time, due to the fact that spectators migrate to dachas and the sea, the day off at the Bolshoi Theater is postponed to Saturday. The female part of the troupe is happy about this: finally there is an opportunity to spend time with their family. Men grumble: when Monday is a day off, you can at least rest and not do household chores.

The working day of ballet masters is also abnormal in understanding ordinary person: from 10:00 to 15:00, then a three-hour break, after the break, work resumes at 18:00 due to evening performances. The official working day for ballet workers ends at 21:00.

A long break is necessary so that after morning training and rehearsals the body has time to rest and recover before evening work.

This is convenient for young dancers: they can study during the break. Gennady Kullinkovich, for example, received his higher choreographic education. But now he sees few advantages in this schedule.

“With such a schedule it is very difficult to arrange a personal life. Look at me: 38 years old, and no family, no children. My whole life is in the theatre,”- says Gennady.

6. Are ballet and children incompatible?

Hearing: Due to requirements for appearance, ballerinas have to give up motherhood.

Is it true: Having a family and children at the height of their career is really more difficult for ballet dancers than for representatives of other professions: both the work schedule and the fact that postpartum restoration of shape requires time and effort. So girls use two strategies: either start a family and children immediately after college/university, or postpone it until they retire.

Despite the unfavorable circumstances, there are ballerinas in the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus who have two, and some even three, children.

“We, just like doctors and teachers, combine work and pregnancy. We plan, we go to maternity leave, we recover and work on. This is a matter for each individual artist, but during pregnancy, the sooner you leave dancing, the better for you and your unborn child. This is associated with risks: here you need to bend, jump, you can fall and get hurt,”- told website ballerinas of the Bolshoi.

“We are the best mothers, wives, and we also know how to dance and tiptoe around the kitchen,”- ballerinas joke in response to a question about the specifics of family life.

7. If he dances in ballet, that means he’s gay.

Hearing: There are many gays among ballet dancers.

Is it true: This is a common stereotype, says ballet dancer Gennady Kullinkovich. We no longer react to it. This is what they say about all men who dance. It is born out of a misunderstanding on the part of the viewer: how can men remain indifferent and calm surrounded by so much beauty and nudity. Spectators often find themselves behind the scenes, and men are shocked: here everyone changes clothes, intimate parts of their bodies are at arm's length... But we are already accustomed to this and react as if it were something normal. So the viewer thinks that the men in the ballet are gay.

8. What does a dancer wear under his tights?

Hearing: Dancers don’t wear panties.

Photo pixabay.com

Is it true: There is more talk about the underwear of male artists than about the underwear of ballerinas: the viewer under a snow-white tights, to his surprise, does not see the expected outlines of the panties.

Gennady Kulinkovich said that dancers have their own secrets. Manufacturers of dancewear meet the expectations of artists and produce seamless models of special underwear that is invisible under the costume - bandages. A store located near the Bolshoi sells special clothes for dancers.

9. Meat in pointe shoes

Hearing: Ballerinas put meat in their pointe shoes to reduce injury to their feet.

Is it true: No meat is included. There are more modern methods leg protection. Ballet companies produce special half shoes that cover only the toes. They are silicone. Some people don’t add anything - it’s already convenient for them. Silicone inserts for pointe shoes are not produced in Belarus; they are made in the USA, China, and Russia.

Photo pixabay.com

Over the course of a year, a ballerina wears out 5-10 pairs of pointe shoes, depending on the load. Some artists have their own lasts - three-dimensional copies of feet made by masters, from which pointe shoes are made to order.

10. Dancing pays well.

Hearing: Artists earn a lot.

Is it true: Everything is relative. The earnings of ballet dancers depend on their position in the troupe: leading stage master, soloist or corps de ballet dancer. The number of scenes worked in productions also affects. For each performance, points are awarded, which are kept by a special theater employee. The amount of points for each dance is different, standard for all artists, it depends on the complexity and duration of the performance. The amount of points received affects the bonus. Thus, the salary of a corps de ballet dancer is around 120 rubles, and the bonus awarded for performances can exceed it several times.

Photo by Sergei Balay

Many adults know nothing about ballet and find it boring. Most often, they even find it difficult to answer what a man is called in ballet. Meanwhile, this is an exciting activity in which there is a place for people of any gender.

Ballet like a man

There are no problems with ballerina girls. But what do you call a man who dances ballet? A simple analogy will help you understand the terms. After all, there are theater, film, and opera artists. So with young men everything is simple. They are ballet dancers or dancers.

Now it’s clear what a man in ballet is called. In addition to ridiculous words, there are many more stereotypical ideas attached to men. Some consider them weak, others overly feminine. But the truth is that dancing for many hours requires remarkable stamina. And holding your partner at arm's length is a real test of strength.

Famous men in ballet

The following dancers made a significant contribution to world culture:

• Vaslav Nijinsky is still considered one of the best dancers in the world, although not a single recording of this artist from the early 20th century has survived.
• Rudolf Nureyev already at the age of twenty became a soloist of the Mariinsky Theater thanks to his incredible charisma and skill.
• known throughout the world for his emphatically masculine style of dancing.
• Mikhail Baryshnikov was so famous that Joseph Brodsky and Stephen King mentioned him in their works.
• George Balanchine is an artist of Georgian origin who laid the foundation for all modern ballet in America.
• Maurice Bejart is one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century, combining the traditions of ancient, classical and modern ballet.

This you should know:

• Men's tights that tightly fit their legs were introduced into use by the French monarch. Louis XIV. He personally loved to dance as part of the troupe and believed that such beautiful limbs should not be hidden from the audience. In addition to emphasizing the beauty of the legs, tights also perform purely practical tasks. They are very comfortable to move in.
• Men never dance in hard pointe shoes. Instead, they prefer soft shoes. By the way, if you call these shoes “slippers,” any dancer will be very offended.
• Ballet dancers do not follow such a strict diet as, for example, actors. The fact is that daily dance classes for many hours in a row are huge physical exercise. Overweight They just won’t have time to appear, but you can feel a lack of calories.
• Dancers should not pump up their muscles too much; they will look ugly on stage. However, a ballet class can successfully replace training in the gym.

Very often, male ballet dancers are called ballerinas! But there is no such word to define a man who dances in ballet. A ballet dancer is a dancer. The word “ballet dancer” has a disparaging connotation, and a self-respecting artist may even be offended when he hears it addressed to him.

They also often make the mistake of assuming that almost all ballet dancers are gay. For some reason, they believe that only women and homosexuals can dance in tights and lift their legs high. But the fact that ballet dancers are physically quite strong and hardy men somehow disappears from attention. The subjective opinion of some does not take into account the fact that many dancers have 2 or 3 children and strong families. Or there is no family, but mistresses - a whole harem from the Swan Lake corps de ballet with Odette at the head. There are, of course, among dancers those who admire the beauty not of the ballerina, but of their neighbor in the men’s dressing room, but this is not a rule, but, as in any other society, rather an “episode”.

Men don't dance in tights. Bottom part men's suit called leotard. The leotard tightly fits the dancer's legs and shows the public all the reliefs: why not show the beauty of trained and strong legs in all their glory?! Bodybuilders, for example, generally demonstrate to judges the achievements of their bodies, smeared from head to toe with oil, wearing only thongs, but for some reason their masculinity is questioned less often.

In modern productions, men are increasingly less likely to appear on stage in tights. Leotards are a tribute to the tradition of classical ballet. Previously, men went on stage in knee-length pantaloons, hiding what noble ladies were not supposed to see through a lorgnette. Vaslav Nijinsky was the first to violate this ban. At the performance of Giselle in 1911, as Albert, he appeared on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater wearing only tights and a short shirt, forgetting to put on his pantaloons (there is a version that he did this on purpose). The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna was present at the performance, and such an act cost Nijinsky his place in the theater. Since then, Nijinsky has toured with S. Diaghilev's Russian Seasons. The forgotten trousers were nothing compared to the scandal at the premiere of his ballet Afternoon of a Faun (1912), where Vaclav clearly and with a slight trembling in his body performed an imitation of copulation in front of the astonished audience.

Nijinsky’s connections with influential men are known for certain, but this does not mean that everyone who has since danced in tights automatically becomes part of his “team.” Nijinsky, by the way, after a same-sex relationship, married a woman, Romola Pulski, and had two daughters with her. But Vaslav’s sister, Bronislava Nijinska, on the contrary, after breaking up with her husband, began to prefer women, and this preference can be seen in many of the ballets she choreographed. Thus, in the ballet “Lani” (1924) there is a duet of two women with a direct hint of same-sex love. In those days, same-sex lovers did not declare themselves on stage as openly as they do now. 20-30 years The 20th century in ballet was truly innovative.

Nowadays men dance not only in tights, but also on pointe shoes and “in full dress” in accordance with the standard image of a ballerina: tutu, false eyelashes, tiaras. There is the “St. Petersburg Male Ballet of Valery Mikhailovsky,” consisting exclusively of men dancing and female parts too. It was founded in 1992. Even a very virtuoso ballerina can envy the en pointe dancing technique performed by these dancers. For all their external imitation, Mikhailovsky’s dancers do not try to become women. They don't shave their torso hair or pad their chests. They remain men in a female form and do not seek to make a parody of women's dance. By transforming into a female image, the dancers want to demonstrate to connoisseurs of male dance their virtuosity and versatility at a high level. professional level. The predecessor of Mikhailovsky's ballet was the male ballet "Trocadero from Monte Carlo", which appeared in 1974. "Trocadero", unlike the St. Petersburg ballet, in its performances parodies women's dance and ballet with its centuries-old traditions, and also very professionally, technically and in pointe shoes.

In standard troupes, in some ballets of the classical repertoire, men also appear in female images. For example, the Stepmother in Cinderella or the Fairy Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty. These parts are characteristic and require sparkling acting skills from the performer. Most often they go to the tallest and most courageous dancers. So, down with the stereotypes and let’s throw the word “ballet dancer” out of our vocabulary. Dancer - that sounds proud!

Conversation between two little girls:

- An auntie in ballet is called a ballerina. Do you know what the uncle is called?

- No, but how?

- Ballerina!

The life of men in ballet is very closed. For example, it was much easier to write about ballerinas - you can find many articles about problems and successes, there are a lot of statements and memories on the forums. But here are the ballet men...

No, well, the problems of ballerinas also concern them fully: injuries and occupational diseases, hard labor and full immersion into the profession, and, as a consequence, unsettled destinies, poor health, etc. But at the same time, there are a huge number of rumors and fables around this profession; perhaps, this is not the case anywhere else. Ballet dancers are brought to the point that when they first meet, they try not to talk about where and who they work for... And the wives of dancers do not like to talk about this topic.

Here, for example, is what the author writes on one of the forums under nickname ballet: "...I say as casually as possible: “My husband is a ballet dancer.” Alas, no matter how many times I tried to immediately change the topic of the conversation, nothing worked. After people found out where my husband worked, they gave me a verbal interrogation, bombarding me with the most ridiculous questions: “Yes?..”, “Wow, how interesting!..”, “Where does he work?” (of course, in the theater, and where else can a ballet dancer work?) “What does he eat?” (dry special food for ballet dancers - I answer), “Does he play sports?”, “Are you jealous of ballerinas?”, or even cooler, “Does he get an erection during a performance?”, “And you have him?” bisexual?"

He is called the prince born on New Year's Eve.

At the age of 10, a little boy named Kolya Tsiskaridze entered the Tbilisi Choreographic School,

at 13 he continued his studies in Moscow,

at 19 he was accepted into the Bolshoi Theater troupe, and at 23 he received the title of Honored Artist of Russia. His dance is technically impeccable, distinguished by spirituality and joy; in his art there is that measure of internal tension and external restraint that creates the majestic beauty of plasticity.

N. Tsiskaridze : “Curiosity brought me to ballet - I really wanted to move behind the orchestra pit, because I was far from the mysterious backstage world and I’m not sure that if I had been shown the inside out as a child, inner side ballet art, then I would choose this professional path. At the age of three I first went to the puppet theater, then to the opera and, finally, to the ballet. It seemed to me that it was all easy and simple, but in fact, oh, how much hard work must be spent to make the dancer’s movements light and beautiful.

I was brought to the choreographic school at my insistence; no one in the family had anything to do with ballet."

In the choreographic school, boys have a special position - and this is understandable, very few of them go there. This is probably why tuition fees at first are different for girls and boys:

For girls 100 thousand rubles. per year (10 thousand rubles per month);

For boys from 1st to 5th grade. - 50 thousand rubles. per year (5 thousand rubles per month).

Gene. Director of the Bolshoi Theater A. Iksanov: "The problem of men in ballet has existed for many years. Not only in our theater. Very few boys go to ballet - today it is becoming unprestigious. It is believed that a man must earn money, must do business, must be courageous. There is a danger that we we will lose an entire ballet generation. To solve this problem, we will be forced to renew the troupe not only at the expense of the Moscow Academy of Choreography. This year, by the way, we didn’t take a single guy. There simply weren’t any worthy graduates of the academy. We’ll have to look for artists in other theaters and in neighboring countries."

I found on one of the forums the memoirs of a blogger under the nickname Shock worker of Labor: “...When I was doing ballroom dancing, I had a partner (an Azerbaijani boy) who moved amazingly, had good hearing and a sense of style, and who was also involved in martial arts and chess.

One evening, returning from regular classes, we came across his classmates (beardless contenders for the proud title of a man with an overwhelming amount of unrealized hormones), who began to ridicule his passion for ballroom dancing and loudly declared him a petka (pyatukho), for which they received an impudent slap in the face and ran to complain to the parents.

A parent-teacher meeting was convened, at which fathers (adult men, some of whom had higher education and were engaged in teaching activities, so to speak, raised future cultural citizens of the republic in their own and other boys and girls) declared my partner a lack of culture and an aggressor, and also expressed their authoritative opinion, which surprisingly coincided with the opinions of their own offspring regarding the tendency towards homosexuality among all those who is somehow related to dance culture. The stigma was so loud that my partner quit dancing and went to study at another school, and, quite likely, will raise his sons in the same spirit of obscurantism and base concepts that suppressed his versatile nature. That’s how they become either gay or fools.”

Sergei Filin, artistic director of the ballet troupe of the theater named after K.S. Stanislavsky and Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko:"... In general, we see fewer and fewer men. Men are disappearing as a species, and in ballet - even more so, in the ballet world, men are degenerating. What can we say about men's dance, if in most choreographic colleges and schools in the world there are 10 girls per Are there 2-3 boys? And by the time it is time to enter the world of art, the theater and take up some positions, out of the three there is only one, or even not a single young man left.

If you come across talented men today, they are like diamonds; Such artists, of course, exist in many theaters around the world - I won’t say that in all of them.

How was Soviet ballet different? There was a huge amount of talent. A fierce competition was held, and the selected children were geniuses even before they started working with them. And when they graduated from college, they really became stars and got into the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters.

The circle of strong dancers has become very narrow, and today the real great artists can be listed on one hand. If earlier at the Bolshoi, the Mariinsky Theater, the Paris Opera, and Covent Garden there were many dancers who had texture, had excellent technique, and had a bright personality and intelligence, today this circle is narrowing. And if stars appear, they are in great demand, they are invited to all theaters, they are literally torn to pieces.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Western society developed a negative view of male ballet. And the strongest stereotype that sits in the brains of people all over the world and is impossible to get it out of there is that men in ballet are all gay. In addition, they run around the stage all day, groping both men and women, and this is pure pleasure! You don't have to work hard in a mine for 12 hours!

Meanwhile, this is a profession in which physical activity and creativity go closely hand in hand.

At the beginning of the 19th century, romanticism was in fashion and the focus of ballet shifted towards ballerinas; the dancer gradually disappeared into her shadow. The ballet turned to folklore, legends, myths and superstitions for inspiration. Nymphs and sylphs, innocent maidens, etc. appeared in it. The dancer was thus demoted to the role of the ballerina's ferryman. It was only to highlight her beauty and talent. Women dominate ballet for the first time in history. The romantic content of the performance is focused on the ballerina, pushing the dancer into the background. The audience wanted to see the ethereal, airy grace of the ballerina.

And the teaching of technique was addressed more to ballerinas. Less and less less than a man trained in ballet. By the mid-19th century, the number of men studying in professional ballet schools in Western Europe decreased sharply. This shortage forced ballerinas to play male roles. This practice of taking on roles intended for dancers of the opposite sex was called travestie dancing.

For several decades, the pas de deux (“dance for two”) was danced by two ballerinas (one of them a travesty).

Romantic critic Jules Janin said: “.. I know nothing more disgusting in the world than a dancer. Under no circumstances can I recognize the right of a man to dance in a public place.”

With the opening of Sergei Diaghilev's Russian seasons in Paris in 1909, Western society saw the ballet dancer's grand return. A real discovery were the productions in which the main character was a man, and the woman in them played a supporting role.

The audience again wanted to see male dancers, although prejudice in society was still not eliminated. However, it has not been eliminated even now.

Rudolf Nureyev changed a lot in ballet, proving that a man can also be the center of attention. And our great choreographer Yuri Grigorovich sometimes divided the accents equally in performances, and sometimes brought men to the fore. But there were real men's dances there!

Just as a book is made of words, a house is made of bricks, any ballet is made of movements. Strict, once and for all established positions of arms and legs, poses, jumps, rotations, connecting movements are the basis of classical dance. By combining these movements and arranging them in a certain order, the choreographer creates a choreographic pattern for the ballet.
The beauty and power of movements depend on whether they accurately express the character of the music, and on the meaning that the director - choreographer and performer - ballet dancer puts into them. And it turns out that the same movement can look different, it can be good and evil, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly, and this sometimes depends on the tilt of the head, sometimes on the position of the arms and body, on the strength and expressiveness of the jump, from the smoothness and speed of rotation.
That’s why ballet performances are so different from each other.

ALASGON, ARABESQUE, ATTITUDE, EKARTE. The main poses, the “pillars” on which classical ballet rests. In all these poses, the performer stands on one leg and the other is raised high: to the side (alasgon), back (arabesque), back with a bent knee (attitude), diagonally forward or backward (ecarte).

ADAGIO. A dance of two or more ballet characters in which they reveal their inner state.

ASSEMBLY. A jump during which one leg opens to the side, forward or backward, and at the end of the jump is pulled towards the other leg.

CHOREOGRAPHER. A person who composes, or, as they say, choreographs a ballet. Sometimes a choreographer, or ballerina, is the name given to the performers of male parts in ballet. It is not right. A man in ballet is called a dancer.

VARIATION. Solo dance, dance monologue.


GLISH SAD. Sliding lateral movement. Usually it connects one movement to another, serves as a preparation, a run-up for a jump.

BURN. Jump from one leg to the other. Grand jetés are performed as a jump over an imaginary obstacle in all the main ballet poses - arabesque, attitude, alasgone.

CABRIOLE. A jump during which one leg kicks the other. The legs are strongly extended. This jump is performed in all directions: forward, sideways, backwards.

LIBRETTO. Literary script of the ballet, its content.

PA DE DEUX. The main dance scene in a ballet or one of the acts of a ballet. The pas de deux reveals the relationships between the characters and shows the dancing skills of the performers. The pas de deux consists of an adagio, a dancer's variation and a ballerina's variation and coda - short, technically complex dance pieces between the dancer and the ballerina.

PACK. A ballerina costume consisting of many short starched tulle skirts. These fluffy and light skirts make the tutu airy and weightless.

PIROUETTE. Rotation around its axis on half toes or toes of one foot. Pirouettes are small when, during rotation, one leg is tightly pressed to the other in front or behind. Large pirouettes are performed in all basic poses.

SUPPORT. An essential element of classical dance. During the dance, the dancer helps the ballerina, supports her, and lifts her up.

POINTE SHOES. One of the main elements of female dance in classical ballet is dancing on the tips of outstretched fingers. For this you need ballet shoes with a hard toe.

FIFTH POSITION. Basic leg position of classical dance. The legs are turned one hundred and eighty degrees. The heel of the right foot is pressed tightly to the toe of the left, and the heel of the left foot is pressed tightly to the toe of the right. The dance most often begins from this position, and this position most often ends.

ROND DE JAMBE. In French it means circle with your feet. In fact, half of the circle is described by the leg on the floor and in the air, during a jump and squat.

SOTE. A jump during which the legs are strongly extended in the first, second or fifth positions.

TOURS. Rotation around its axis during a jump. Tours are made with one and two revolutions. A round with two turns is an element of male dance.

LESSON. Ballet dancers never stop learning. Every day they come to the ballet class for a lesson. It lasts at least an hour. The lesson is divided into two halves: the smaller one – exercise (exercise) at the barre and the larger one – exercise in the middle of the hall. During the lesson, all the movements that a ballet dancer needs in dancing are improved and practiced.

CHAZHMAN DE PIED. A jump during which the legs are in fifth position and change places.

FOUETTE. The ballerina rotates around her axis on the toes of one foot. After each turn she opens the other one to the side. Fouette is usually performed at a very fast tempo, sixteen or thirty-two times in a row.