BALLET
MORE THAN A SPORT IT'S A LIFESTYLE
In doing ballet, Marlene is able to find the opportunity to remain physically active while being involved in something that is truly delighting to her, given that from a young age, she has always seen herself highly interested in this art. Even though she perceives ballet as being a hobby, which helps her maintain her good health, she refers to it as being an extremely demanding sport.
At the age of four, Marlene had her first encounter with the art of ballet. Her parents took her to see the Russian ballet dancer Makarova, who played as the main character for the ballet production the “Dying Swan”. From that moment forward Marlene became passionate on ballet, which is clear when she explains “it was magical to observe a woman’s transformation into a sawn through the divine esthetics of her movements”.
Since she was five up to when she was 10 Marlene participated in ballet lessons at Raquel Ercole’s academy, but stopped attending due to her father believed that any respectable women could not under any circumstances become a dancer given that at the time society depicted ballet dancers as having a bad reputation.
At school, Marlene always wanted to join the ballet group but she felt as if the level of intensity that was taught was inferior and quite limited compared to what she was looking for, as her dream was to eventually become a professional ballet dancer. Therefore she stepped down from her dream and passion for a while.
As soon as Marlene graduated high school, her instinct was to imply to her family her dream of becoming a full-time professional ballet dancer, however, her father remained skeptical towards the idea of ballet being a profession. According to her father, she needed to study and do something, which would eventually provide her with enough resources to live a stable life. His supporting statement was that a dancer’s success is extremely short due to the physical exhaustion, such concept lead Marlene to radically change her dream and study medicine leaving her with little if no time to dedicate herself to ballet.
It was not until she was 40 that Marlene decided to embrace and dedicate her time to her only passion, ballet. At this point in time, she does not see or do ballet as a creative and artistic manner of expressing personality but rather as hobby and sport that provides her with coordination, balance, stretching of the muscles, and deep stimulation to her memory. To Marlene, ballet is a physical activity in which she can easily perform mainly due to the fibromyalgia that she has had for a while.
Now at 59, Marlene still attends ballet lessons. She has been able to manage and organize her time between being a teacher at university, giving out ted talks at various occupational health companies and multinationals, making stained glass windows as well as doing yoga and Pilates in order to effectively function in ballet training that can last up to six and eight hours weekly. The academy, which Marlene attends, does a performance every year, however Marlene decided that last year’s performance was her last appearance.
Marlen has a ballet barre at her home for doing her daily stretching exercises.
Marlen is a very solitary person who finds in ballet a great distraction.
Marlen's memories of her first ballet performances.
Pointe shoe and ballet slipper.
Stained Glass, one of her biggest passions in life.
Due to her small feet she must use little girl's ballet slippers or get them done in her size.
This are her favorite accessories, which are from the play "Paquita".
She handles the repair of the ribbons and rubbers from her slippers either because these become undone or need to be replaced because of use.
In this bag Marlen carries everything she needs for her classes and trainings, the leotard, the toe pads, the two ballet slippers pairs, and others.
The training class lasts an hour and is prior to the ballet pointe class.
Marlen gets ready for her class, first she puts on the toe pads for protecting the toes and then the pointe slippers.
Training pointe slippers.
Marlen feels nostalgic when looks photographies from important and big moments in her ballet carrier, thats because she knows she wont be able to make another performance again.
The last tutu she ever wore.
