Beautiful Dancers
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Ballet has been around since the early 1500’s, when it was developed in France as part of the courtly entertainment, usually presented with operatic interludes. It quickly spread to Russia, however, and today Russian ballerinas are among the most famous in the world. And at Met-Art, we love ballerinas as much as anyone else, though we prefer them when they show a little bit of what’s beneath their tutus.
The ballerinas you see in this pictorial are actual trained ballerinas from Russia. This means they have trained hard since they were young to master the rigorous steps necessary to perform ballet. They exude excellence, precision, and elegance.
As Eliza Minden, pointe shoe designer and ballet expert, says, “Ballet classics are full of supernatural creatures who appear to float or hover or fly with an ethereal lightness and delicacy. The great ballerina roles include many fairies and ghosts, magic birds, as well as numerous sylphs, sprites, and nymphs. In these roles, the ballerina’s dancing conveys supernatural weightlessness, and makes her character more convincing. As a fairy or sylph, she uses her dance to flit magically about the stage. As the wicked temptress, she hypnotizes the prince. As a princess, she shows poise and elegance during her astounding leaps, spins, and climaxes.”
Looking at this pictorial, you can see the truth of what Ms. Minden says. The models in this series are indeed supernatural creatures that appear to float and hover with ethereal lightness and delicacy. They are like nymphs at the edge of a dark forest. Their limbs are delicate and limber. One can imagine them moving about effortlessly in a light mist on the edge of some castle in a romantic fairy tale. They seem to pop right out of your mythical childhood. They please the eye and yet they also warm the heart with their ebullience and joie d’vivre.
Anna Pavlova, one of the great Russian ballerinas, once said, "What exactly is success? For me it is to be found not in applause, but in the satisfaction of feeling that one is realizing one’s ideal. When, a small child rambling over there by the fir trees, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong. Happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away." Clearly, the girls in this pictorial have achieved a level of success, and we can all feel great happiness in their willingness to share some of it with us.
