Home » Maya Plisetskaya: a dancer like no other

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Maya Plisetskaya: a dancer like no other — 18 Comments

  1. Lovely post about a true artist. I so enjoyed your first one, it’s great to see more on her.

    And she looks younger at 81 than I at “29”!

  2. She is not diminished! She is better than ever – better than she ever was – if only one knows what one is looking for.

  3. I saw Martha Graham dance when she was 71; she didn’t move a lot either and the other dancers would give her occasional unobtrusive help. It seems astronomers and dancers can look forward to long productive lives if they stick to the craft and avoid the pitfalls.

  4. It is as though she were a goddess of the ancient Greeks, or one of the muses. I didn’t know such superlative people existed in these most ungodly (or ungoddesly) of times.

  5. I hope I look as good when I am 83, though the life of a construction worker doesn’t lend itself well to aging gracefully.

  6. I can’t believe she’s eighty. I would have guessed fifty or sixty at most from those pictures. Wow.

  7. Oh, I’,m sorry. I’m looking for the restroom. Can some body point me in the right direction?

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  9. I have a pair of her pointe shoes signed by her when she danced in liverpool in the early sixties. My husband worked at the Empire.

  10. I saw Plisetskaya perform THE DYING SWAN with the Bolshoi, in Melbourne, Australia, in 1970. I was not a great fan of classical ballet, and can remember nothing about the other pieces, except that they bored me. But Maya Plisetskaya’s DYING SWAN was sublime, transcendent! Schmulzy it was not! I have subsequently read that, as her signature piece, it became for her, about aging as a ballerina.

  11. I saw her danced The Dying Swan in early 80″s in Manila’s Cultural Center of the Philippines courtesy of then First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos. I thought she was a goddess sent from above to interpret the most fascinating ballet act I have ever seen. The flexibility of her arms was unbelievable and I haven’t seen any interpretation of the piece as magical as hers. Bravo Maya!

  12. I recommend that people take a look at video of Maya in Maurice Béjart’s Bolero:

    youtube.com/watch?v=SsSALaDJuN4

    And in Death of the Rose:

    youtube.com/watch?v=ku_rFPKm5ao

  13. I REMAIN MESMERIZED WHENEVER I WATCH MAYA’S BOLERO OR CARMEN AND WISH THAT I COULD HAVE WATCH HER PERFORM ALIVE. ALAS, THE LAST OF THE GIANTS WILL SOON BE EXTINCT AND THE WORLD WILL NOT SEE SUCH TALENT AGAIN

  14. It’s Mayday 2013, and I was surfing Quora and somehow linked to this chestnut.

    I was a student majoring in Russian Studies in 1969. I had an unhappy affair with my Russian teacher that semester. She went away and broke my heart.

    I have always been a nut about classical music, and one day while browsing vinyl records I came across the Carmen Suite by Shchedrin and the album cover was Plisetskaya as Carmen. She was almost the spitting image of my beloved. I have been in love with her ever since, and with the wonderful translation of Bizet’s music as well.

    But love’s boat smashed against the daily grind (Mayakovsky) and the album disappeared from my library. After seven years my Russian teacher and I reconnected. I am ashamed to admit that I had allowed my infatuation with the dancer I never knew to color my hopes for bliss with my reality based Russian teacher, and all was quickly and finally finished between us.

    When next Cupid shot me, I knew that Maya had to go to the closet.

    And now, in her 80’s, I see she has aged as prettily as I was sure she would in 1970. It was really nice to see her again. Thank you.

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