In Georgia, a country with a longstanding dancing tradition, many a family indulges in dreams of their daughter making her mark as a ballet dancer. It seems they fail to see what an uphill battle a ballet career can be.
There is but one professional school of choreography in Tbilisi - the V.Chabukiani Tbilisi Ballet Art State School. Young aspiring ballerinas are only admitted after passing a rigorous selection procedure, but once they do they don’t have to pay any tuition fees. There are presently 300 pupils between 6 and 18 years of age learning to dance there.
The school celebrated its centenary in 2016. It’s undergone a series of reforms and relocated numerous times over the past several years. The school's official name is currently the Vakhtang Chabukiani Tbilisi Ballet Art State School. Georgia's state ballet troupe mainly relies on it for its supply of ballerinas.
Maggie: the beginnings
Maggie is twelve. She was enrolled in the school after taking artistic gymnastics classes for several years.
Maggie’s mom, Irina, says even children’s ballet is a risky affair, as there is always the chance for all the commitment and investment made to go to waste. Years of hard work may never end up translating into a professional career, she said.
As Maggie is still in in the early years of the school, she has some time to take a look around to see if, perhaps, there is something that might matter to her more than ballet, something that could make for a less challenging career path.
Maggie and her family are now preparing to move to the USA, most likely next year. Maggie will continue her ballet studies there – supposedly in New York.
I wouldn’t want her to give up on her dancing now, after so much has been invested in it. Maggie may not become a ballerina at the end of the day, but she must complete her studies,” Irina said.
Battement and diploma
Anna is almost there – it’s her final year in the school.
A major milestone in the life of an aspiring ballerina is the casting for the state ballet troupe. Now, Anna is more nervous preparing for it than for her graduation exams. The exams are due in the spring, while the casting call is scheduled for September.
Last year, they only accepted one girl into the troupe, while the year before that – five girls. There are nine candidates to choose from in my class. I hope they will take at least three of us.
“At a casting, a dancer is assessed for their physical suitability and looks as well as for their coordination and musicality. Some say my chances of being selected are not bad.”
Those who are selected get a six-month unpaid internship with the troupe. It’s a test, and rejection is an ever-present possibility. Those who pass it become part of the corps de ballet and are put on the payroll.
“At first they receive 400 lari [about 150 dollars], which may increase a bit later on. There are occasional performance bonuses as well,” Anna said.
On any given weekday, Anna spends most of the time working out. On weekends, she’s started taking private lessons – ones not related to ballet – to catch up on other school subjects ahead of the school-leaving certificate exams in the spring. The school’s curriculum strongly prioritizes dance classes, leaving senior girls little time and energy for regular schoolwork.
The risk of expulsion
In most cases, expulsions follow in the wake of physical clearance exams. The examining doctors do not only evaluate the girls in terms of their medical fitness, but also physical parameters such as weight, height etc. and, just like that, breasts deemed too big may become a reason for expulsion.
Ballerinas warming up ahead of a rehearsal
No young aspiring ballerina can predict how her body will turn out when she’s a teen. No one keeps count of the ballet careers which ended before they’d even started because of a wrong hip width or wrong breast size.
“When deciding whether or not to take on a new pupil, an experienced teacher will make sure to have a good look at her mother’s – or, still better, her grandmother’s – physique first,” said Natalia Digmelashvili, a lecturer at the Tbilisi Theatre and Cinema University who used to work as a ballet teacher in Tbilisi and Moscow.
“But, on the whole, requirements of ballerinas in Georgia are easing up – a pupil of the school may weigh 54 kg today, whereas twenty years ago the maximum allowed weight was 50 kilos.”
A ballerina putting her pointe shoes on.
“A ballerina’s extra weight can harm her partner,” Natalia said.
And male partners are something to be taken great care of here, especially because they are chronically in short supply.
Natalia attributes the deficit of men in the Georgian ballet to low salaries. “My son is a ballet dancer too, but, like many of his colleagues, he emigrated to Germany in the early 2000s. He is a ballet teacher there now.”
In Georgia, job opportunities for professional ballet dancers are far and few between. Those who are not admitted to the state ballet troupe leave to dance elsewhere or seek to assert themselves in another field.
“Many resort to teaching,” Natalia said. “But a good dancer does not always make a good teacher.”
Text and photos: Diana Petriashvili, Russian Language News Exchange Project, specially for JAMnews