I need to rant somewhere: Catherine Pollack wrote this on her instagram: LIKE WHAT THE FFFFFF. The irony is that she posted videos of Khiteeva dancing BEAUTIFULLY alongside this.
A memorable matinee performance of “Raymonda” took place on March 15. First, there were more than twenty debuts in roles ranging from principal to secondary and character parts. Second, and unfortunately, A. Ermakov was injured during his variation. Another factor, in my opinion, was the accumulated stress caused by his many years of being (and there’s no other word for it) exploited as the company’s tallest and strongest male dancer, tasked with lifting larger female soloists. Instead of getting into shape themselves, these dancers relied on his exceptional partnering abilities. He repeatedly risked his health by lifting performers of weight categories that, by definition, should not exist in classical ballet (though this doesn’t entirely apply to the debuting ballerina). Before long, the tall prima ballerinas of the Mariinsky will have no partner to dance with, because these female soloists simply cannot lose weight.
By the way, Andrei “jumped into” the production, replacing T. Askerov, with whom A. Khiteeva had been preparing her debut (Timur withdrew a couple of days prior). I must commend Alexandra’s resilience and resourcefulness: having lost her partner on stage, she instantly adapted and filled the sudden gap in Jean de Brienne’s coda with an improvised repeat of her own coda using passé relevé—at an incredible tempo and with aplomb. Bravo! In the current climate, stress tolerance is in high demand; the company needs ballerinas it can depend on.
All the same, A. Khiteeva’s inclusion in “Raymonda” is contentious for reasons I’ve already discussed in my notes. Her artistic type is more ingénue than Grand Dame, and her access to the lead roles in “Swan Lake,” “La Bayadère,” and “Raymonda” was justifiably restricted, primarily due to her ballet and physical attributes—her stocky figure and proportions.
“The role of Kitri can be assigned to a highly agile ballerina… But to dance Odette and Odile or Raymonda, a ballerina must have a slender figure, ‘singing’ arms, and long legs. Dancers with a squat figure are not suitable for these roles…,” writes choreographer R.V. Zakharov, and I share his opinion. To be continued…
I thought on the whole, Khiteeva danced very well, especially given the last-minute partner switch. Khiteeva has a lovely presence, vintage port de bras and elegant, restrained classical lines and I've read numerous comments saying her persona isn't done justice on the video. I know Khiteeva is not the most traditional adagio dancer but I was blown away. The dream adagio variation is stunning, smooth, and calm and the details of her port de bras are unmissable. Not to mention, her reprisal of the coda, when Ermakov had gotten injured literally just minutes before, takes nerves of steel (and iron calves).
My main criticisms with her lie in the wedding variation, her legs just look a little shot and you can tell. I thought she looked a bit tired and this affected her upper body and epaulement as well, which was gorgeous for most of the ballet. There was wobbly pointework and some clunky and imprecise pas de bouree. This variation is deceptively difficult because it's so simple and your mistakes are so easily visible, and you have to dance it at the end of a very long ballet. Khiteeva has some progress to make in terms of her stamina for a full-length ballet, especially one as intense as Raymonda but I thought this was a very solid debut.
Regarding Pollack's complaints about on 'overweight' ballerinas. Khiteeva's body type, while not as slender as some of the other Mariinsky dancers, resembles a lot of dancers in major European and American companies. I'm not going to name names but look at some of the top principals at the Royal, Dutch National, and even Paris Opera for instance. Of course, all of the women are in ridiculous shape, but few are as rail thin as many of the Russians, this doesn't affect their ability to dance or portray particular characters in ballet. This is separate from talking about typecasting or technical abilities.
And while I don't disagree that Ermakov is overworked, telling the women that they need to diet to extremes is just not the solution. Google says Ermakov is 195 cm, at that height, he's going to be responsible for dancing with the tallest women in the company. Mariinsky knows what dancers they have employed- and they have a lot of tall, long-legged women. They're not suddenly going to weigh (nor should they) the same as shorter dancers. There is also not an actual 'definition' of a magic weight that a professional dancer has to weigh. I'm sure Pollack is referring to the VBA regulations but those are incredibly stringent, (girls over 50kg are often not allowed to be lifted) and have been consistently tied to eating disorders and also are structured for students going through puberty, not fully grown women. I know for a fact that these are certainly not followed in the professional world. Certainly, there is pressure to be in shape and to be thin, but different bodies carry weight differently and there is a growing acceptance of dancers looking like women and not like toothpicks, especially in the West. Case in point, I weigh more than 50kg, I'm dancing pas de deux, classical and contemporary on stage with a prominent theater, as do many of my colleagues. So much about safe, effective lifts is about technique, coordination and trust, not just about a number on the scale.
The bigger issue, which Pollack makes no mention of is that Ermakov does not have enough help. Among the principal men, Kimin and Stepin haven't been cast with the tallest women, only Askerov can really chip in. Considering the first soloists, Belyakov is useful but Capitane is not tall enough, Korneyev and Konovalov are not the most stable partners, Sergeev is aging out of big classical roles and Zverev's stage presence is frequently lackluster. The second soloists have a lot of young guys, who are slowly developing but have limited repertoires at the moment. I think Malyshev and Baibordin have a lot of potential, but I'm not sure either of them has danced a principal role in a full-length ballet. They can't be go to, pinch replacements with their lack of experience. This is one consequence of MT being so slow to develop their younger men, it means that people like Ermakov and Askerov have more intense workloads and are more vulnerable to injury. Now I wish the MT management did more to combat that, if they want to continue to hire so many tall, lanky women, I wish they would be more proactive about hiring men and continuing to look outside VBA for talent.
