With one of the cleanest techniques in classical ballet and an enviable physique, ballerina Oksana Skorik has had a difficult path to the top, yet created a furor among ballet fans when she began her career. She told VaganovaToday about her story and philosophy. Click here for the original Russian version of the interview, and read on for more.
How did you begin dancing?
People often say when someone wants to become a ballerina that the desire was most likely their mother’s wish. My mother also took ballet in her childhood, but just for two years. Then she moved and no longer took classes. But I was always dancing, jumping and skipping, and my mom sent me to arts school to direct my energy there.
Nobody counted on or intended on me becoming a ballerina, there was no focus on the idea that I should become a ballerina or fulfill my mother’s dream. I’d say they sent me to ballet class to “give me something to do.”
In Kharkov, we had a school of the arts; they taught drawing, music and choreography. At the age of 5, I attended preparatory classes there. But it’s difficult to call what they did “choreography” — we didn’t turn out our legs. They would sit us down, for example, in the butterfly position, stretch us in the splits a tiny bit, bend back a little bit, so that we would be able to stand in fifth position later on, and we learned some choreographic elements. At that time, the post-Soviet school was still preserved. It was only later that they started to take children into ballet classes from the age of 3, immediately turn out their legs and torture them. But we didn’t experience that.
We had a rhythmic class, played with spoons in order to develop musicality and a sense of rhythm. My first entrance on stage was in the “pancake dance”. Our parents created a 30-cm diameter pancake for each of us and we danced with them.
But I only began to study choreography and learn first position from the age of 9. Prior to that, the teachers emphasized the dancing side of things more, that is, the focus was on setting short dances. We also did gymnastics and learned lots of different dances. I remember my pedagogue was Elena Petrovna Solovieva. She set the numbers to music and we performed them. We didn’t know what an arabesque was, we just danced. Those were the preparatory years, when I was 7 and 8 years old.
Later I attended my first ballet class at the Kharkov Choreographic School. We learned the positions and arabesques there. The program they had was quite good: classical ballet, gymnastics twice a week and practice three times a week. For a while they also taught us rhythmics, musical literature, French, and drawing.
I began the first grade (year) without pointe shoes. I put them on for the first time only in the autumn when I was 10 years old. I turned 11 that spring, and in June we went to Yuri Grigorovich’s competition called “Fouette Arteka” which took place at the seaside in the Crimean hills at a large camp for talented children. After the competition, we stayed on to vacation.
That was where they noticed me for the first time in my life. They told me I was a gifted child. My mother had not been able to attend. I want to point out, that I was not the most gifted one there, I should not have attended the competition, but they’d decided that if there was a possibility to represent the Kharkov school, why not send more children. They wanted to boast that they had a lot of talented children. The competition was international, there were participants from India and China up to the age of 18 years old.
A pedagogue from Perm noticed me, and told me “Come to our school!” There was also a representative from the Vaganova Academy. They invited me to Petersburg as well, but as a foreigner, and I would have had to pay 10,000 dollars per year. They invited me to Perm because the director was from Kharkov herself and she gave discounts for children from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
I danced a number called “The Mermaid” that Solovieva had set, and there were no technical components in it at all. I won first place in the younger group (children up to 13 years old), they and invited me to Perm directly. But since my mother was not at the competition, the pedagogues from Kharkov did not tell her right away.
So we didn’t know that I could attend the Choreographic School in Perm right away, I went only a year later.
After one week at the competition, we spent another two weeks in the camp, and I understood that it wasn’t so hard to live without my mother, that I can get by. Of course morally speaking it is more difficult. But I saw that if I have to go study somewhere without my mom, I’d be able to.
There was a second similar moment, when still in Kharkov at the age of 12 we went on tour to Spain, to Palma de Mallorca. And we spent two months on the Canary Islands and performed 43 performances: “Pinnochio”, “Cinderella”, and “Snow White.” We were there without our parents. It was very difficult, especially at the end, just one week before the end of the trip. They had given us per diems, small ones, but it was something. And I had saved all of mine, thinking “I will buy some really nice gifts, Spanish souvenirs or expensive cosmetics for my mom and bring them home.” And they stole my wallet. Later it turned out, it was one of the girls from our group. Those sorts of hardships without your parents are very difficult to handle at a young age.
The pedagogue phoned my mother after this trip. I thought that she was going to have a serious conversation with her about how everything is horrible and you have to rehearse, since due to the trip I had missed the general academic program for two months. But it turned out that she said that we needed to immediately travel to Perm. There, in Perm, the director, Ludmila Shevchenko was campaigning for talented children. A year prior they’d said that I was talented and would accept me immediately to study even without the competition, and we needed to move forward. And my mother was just now hearing about it. My mom said, “It seems we need to continue in a more serious school where you can obtain a diploma and find work in a theatre. We’re losing time.” We then decided to go to Perm at the end of summer.
When we called, they said, “You know, a year has passed, but pack your documents and bags and plan to stay for a month or two. We have to look at you first.” My mother and father travelled with me. We were on the trains for three days. It was very difficult to find tickets, there were no direct trains. We had to travel from Kharkov to Moscow, Moscow to Kazan and then Kazan to Perm. I was exhausted after the trains!
There were auditions at the time, and out of 80 people over the course of 3 days they didn’t accept anyone. Then they accepted me and two girls for a test period of two months: how we do with the studies, what kind of temperament do we have. In the end, they dismissed the two other girls over the course of two years, so I was the only one out of those 80 who attended.
Did the desire to dance develop in you at some point?
I first thought about if I wanted to be a ballerina when I saw “Giselle”. I was 7 years old. Prior to that, I had seen only “Cinderella” and other children’s productions. But “Giselle” was my first serious ballet. During intermission after she had died, I cried. My father explained that the heroine had died but the ballerina had not, and she would come back on and dance again in the second act. That calmed me down.
And I thought then, “I have to dance ‘Giselle’”. But you have to grow into that, you can’t just do it! And after the competition, when they told me I was gifted, I thought “Maybe I really can dance.”
What was the atmosphere like in Perm?
It was incredibly difficult there, possibly because I was a teenager.
Prior to leaving Kharkov, my pedagogue for classical ballet, Tamara Mikhailovna Ivannikova, gave me two videos and said, “Watch these.” There was the Efim Reznik film “Terpsichore’s Prisoners” about Natalia Balakhnicheva and Ludmila Sakharova, and an interview with Anastasia Volochkova along with a gala concert.
And I saw in the video how Sakharova did not hold back any of her words and even hit the students. For example, during a rehearsal for “Giselle”, she insisted the ballerina shift her arms faster, and she slapped her on the back such that a handprint remained on the dancer’s back. I watched the film and thought, “Well I’m not that gifted, they won’t demand so much of me,” and I travelled to Perm with the thought, “Please just let them accept me.” I understood first of all that they already had children in the school and plenty of gifted ones. I travelled there absolutely without fear that they’d give me so much attention… No one could predict ahead of time what would happen next.
Then in Perm, it turned out I was gifted. And the pedagogue, without hesitation, said something like “God gave you these gifts and nothing else.” She understood perfectly that dancing talent alone is not enough. She always said to us, “Idiots do not dance.” If you think with your brain, you will dance.
Tell us about the film “A Beautiful Tragedy”.
This film was created upon request from Europe, and it is part of a trilogy called “The Children of Perestroika.” A Norwegian man came and created films on order, he made three movies about what happened with the former Soviet Union, and this is one of the three. The first was “Children’s Prison” and the third was about the Choreographic School in Perm, where everyone is a tyrant, and the various means of raising children. Of course nothing that was good about Perm is shown in the film. The school’s director brought the film crew in and said, “You can film this girl,” and it was only in her interest that there was some sort of advertisement for the Perm school.
You have an incredible body. Were you aware of this in school?
No. The only thing I knew was that it was easier for me to master the program. I understood that probably my capabilities allow me to surpass my peers in some way. The pedagogue asked me to do something and I did it. And everyone stood there in shock, “How did she do it?” This was my “gift”. And what was in your head at the time was another question. Thirty-two fouettés were the same thing. I did them because I was “gifted” (sarcasm).
In Kharkov, they developed our coordination very thoroughly, and we danced a lot, in the course of a year we could learn 8 to 10 dances from various genres – children’s polkas and jazz. We just moved, and I didn’t think of much else. And I have a huge amount of gratitude to my pedagogues that they cultivated in me that “dancing” ability. Because when they’ve stretched you out from all directions and you also have great coordination, of course you’re going to master the components of choreography faster than when you start turning out at age 4. There’s no point in that, it just turns children into invalids.
Was the atmosphere in the school competitive?
I think that the pedagogue encouraged the competition. She always set up situations that most often went against me. But as the years passed, when they made me a prima at the Mariinsky, I called her and told her. She said, “I don’t understand how you became a ballerina, I didn’t create a ballerina out of you.”
It was important for her that everyone in the class continued until graduation. She said that out of the entire class (15 people), two and a half people were the most talented. On the other hand, she also understood under what conditions we were growing up: it was the 1990s, you had to ensure that we were focused. She held us in fear and for some time that worked. But during the second course, we stopped taking her shouting seriously. If she started to shout, we laughed, we had developed an “immunity” to it by then. We would just filter out the corrections and their essence, and leave the rest.
How did it happen that you were accepted into the Mariinsky?
During the third “course” [last year of study] during winter vacation, I called the administration of the Mariinsky and introduced myself, and asked if I could attend a class. They gave me a pass. Galina Petrovna Kekisheva gave the class. I left her a disk with my “Nutcracker” on it, and she promised to give it to Makhar Khasanovich Vaziev (artistic director of the Mariinsky ballet troupe from 1995-2008 – Editor’s note). The troupe was on tour at the time, and Vaziev wasn’t there. And I had to go back to start the second semester. So I spent all of one day here.
And two weeks later, when I was back in Perm, our director comes into the studio and says “Oksana, Makhar Khasanovich called and said you need to come back and audition again in Petersburg.” And I say “how?!” She says, “It’s OK, I’ll tell the teachers here and we will give you three days.”
So I came here to audition. I was so scared, they took me to the soloist’s class. There was Vishneva, Kondaurova, Somova, Sarafanov – all soloists or principals. And I’m standing there, afraid to even move. When we moved to the center, Diana Vishneva stood at the center of the first group and I stood at the edge, and Vaziev shouts, “Oksan’, come on, I can’t see, come stand here!” And I go out to the center of the group. I did the class and jumped until the very end.
Then there was an orchestral rehearsal of “Raymonda” and Vaziev was busy. I peeked in, and could not believe my own eyes: I was standing 15 meters away from the goddess Uliana Lopatkina! So many emotions ran through me! I wanted them to accept me just at some level, I had no claims to do anything great!
After the run-through Makhar Khasanovich called me into his office. He was smoking a pipe. He looked at me and said, “Well I don’t know whether to accept you or not.” Where I grew up in Perm, everything was simple. So I said, “Well make up your mind, will you take me or not.” And he looks at me, calls Tatiana Gumba by phone, and says “Tanya, write her in as a coryphée for now.” And then to me he says, “Finish your studies, get the diploma.”
The company was such at the time that I was like a little gnome, everyone was so tall.
We had two year-end concerts in Perm, and in May 2007 I came to Petersburg to start work. And Vaziev left a year later.
What was the sensation during your first season at the Mariinsky?
The same fear – and incredible admiration. I remember how we were jumping and started to stretch after class, and a rehearsal with Sarafanov began in the 4th studio. I remember I just stuck to the floor, the way I sat down in the splits is the way I stayed as I sat and watched. The rehearsal went on, and nobody paid attention to me.
So during my first season I couldn’t believe my luck that I was working at the Mariinsky Theatre. It was difficult because there was no system of payment per entrance on stage as there is now, just a fixed low level salary. I received 12,000 rubles per month (Editor’s note: currently worth $120, at the time about $500) and half of it went to the room I rented where I lived with other girls.
The tours saved us because they gave us per diems. A year later they changed the system, but the longer you work, the more you receive. And when they increased my salary, things got better. Plus, at the end of the first season, they gave me a spot in the dormitories so I saved money on living expenses.
But I had auditioned in other theatres and prior to the invitation from the Mariinsky, I had already received an “assignment” at the Stanislavsky Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre in Moscow. They accepted me immediately as a soloist and gave me a room in Moscow. I thought it would be better to be closer to my home and see my mother more often. They also offered me a contract in the Eifman troupe. I am 173 cm tall and they said they need tall girls like me.
In the case of the “assignment” [Editor’s note: a holdover from the Soviet system], when you agree to it, within five years from that moment you can return to the theatre you were assigned to and they are obligated to employ you. But my pedagogue advised me to try the Mariinsky. And after that orchestra rehearsal where I saw Uliana Lopatkina, I decided: even if I don’t dance at all, I want to be near these masters of ballet. It was more interesting for me here.
But it was difficult. I had danced the role of Maria (Editor’s note: Clara in Western productions) in “The Nutcracker” 6 times while I was in school and Swanilda from “Coppelia” once, but it was incredibly difficult for me. As I imagined it, for example, if they give me three performances a month as a soloist, I thought “My God, I’m not ready, I would do better in the corps de ballet.” In fact I was not mistaken, but yes there are drawbacks to working in the corps de ballet. It so happened that I would dance almost four acts of “Swan Lake” – that’s of course very difficult. I didn’t participate in “Jewels”, not in “Emeralds” and not in “Rubies”, but I was required to learn all of the choreography. And the same for every single role in “The Sleeping Beauty”. Wherever it was possible to stand in the corps de ballet, I stood there and performed.
Who is your pedagogue in the theatre now?
Elena Evteeva. She’s very intelligent, soft and reserved, but also very demanding. If she doesn’t like something, I can see it immediately, she shows it quietly. Sometimes we have different approaches. When doing a tours pique en dedans she said, “You have to engage your glute muscles,” and I said, “what if I use my abdominal muscles?” Well it’s the same thing. We’re speaking about the same thing but in different languages. Maybe due to the fact that we come from different generations. But actually you have to engage all of those muscles. She isn’t like a mother, but she’s always in the studio with me. We have a working relationship but I’m grateful to her that she supported me so much from the very start.
Because it’s very difficult to work in the corps de ballet and also perform solo roles. I remember when my break during the day was just one hour long and sometimes only 40 minutes. I would lie down in the dressing room because my legs could no longer move. That’s really hard of course. And there were times that she brought me soup. I feel her care for me in that way, more of a human relationship than just working.
Was it easier to work that way in the corps de ballet than as a soloist performing 3 times a month?
First of all, I wanted to watch. At first, in order to learn all of the productions. It’s easy to learn them in the corps de ballet because you learn the entire production anyway when you’re dancing in it on stage. And, accordingly, it really helped me when I became a soloist because I didn’t have an orchestra rehearsal or run-through of “Swan Lake”, “Don Quixote” or “Legend of Love.” I had already learned all of those productions from the inside out. You can watch countless times from the audience, but you still won’t notice the details that you see from the stage. For example, in the third act of “Legend” when the ballerina jumps out from the corner in a jeté, you know that you can’t run in front of her, you have to go behind her.
When Yuri Fateev gave me the main role in “Giselle”, I had already danced in “Serenade”, Florine and the Lilac Fairy [from “The Sleeping Beauty”] and many solo roles. But I was listed in the corps de ballet.
At the end of the third season I danced “Giselle”, the end of the fourth in “Swan Lake”. In my fifth season we went on tour to Turin with “Bayadere” and “Swan Lake”. It was interesting as I was in the corps de ballet and in the trio of Shades, trading off with another girl. I danced 12 performances that way. The 3 Shades is no gift, it’s not so simple. During the tour, they gave ten “Swan Lakes” and I danced four of them. Only when we returned to Petersburg in December, I was made a Second Soloist.
You were a very controversial dancer at that point for unclear reasons.
It wasn’t clear then: if I’m dancing poorly, why are they giving me solo roles? When I started to dance, the fans of one ballerina for no reason started to pour dirt on me. They had never even seen me. They didn’t know who I was as a person, what I had gone through, how I got to where I was, or why I dance. I rehearse, I have a pedagogue – one of the best in the Mariinsky Theatre—and she would not allow me to go out on stage if I was not prepared. That was the case with Aurora, I had to refuse the role because I wasn’t prepared and twice I said, “Yuri Valerievich [Fateev], I can’t dance this, because Elena Viktorovna [Evteeva] is not satisfied.”
I started to dance actively. Everything hurt so much, I can’t even express it in words. Because leaving the corps de ballet, I was broken, but everyone always saw me as “she’s gifted, it doesn’t cost her anything.” Well people, being talented does not mean you “don’t put in any effort”. I remember the first time I danced the role of Titania in “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. In reality this is considered to be a role for a ballerina who is ending her career because there aren’t a lot of technical elements in the role. But there’s something to do, because I was sweating by the time I finished. And I remember at the premiere, during the intermission we drank champagne and I had my last entrance ahead of me. And the only technically challenging part in the last entrance is that you have to do a turn and from the turn open your leg into arabesque. And do it softly so it is beautiful. Well after the champagne I had a bit of extra lightness. And a pedagogue said in front of Fateev, that I had “Nothing to do” in the role, hinting that I wasn’t tired. And I never danced the role again because she said that. But that ballet is fantastic.
When we went on tour to London, they set my debut of Aurora but didn’t tell me. “Elena Viktorovna, I have the premiere of Aurora in three days.” She replied “How?” I told her I’d seen the billboard for it. I then asked Fateev to warn me about any debuts and he replied, “I can’t run after everyone.”
Does promotion inside the theatre depend on talent?
I achieved it only through my own hard work. Unfortunately I chose the most difficult route. It’s possible there are easier routes but that’s how I did it, only through work. I don’t even know how many evening rehearsals I had, even when I was preparing for “Giselle” for example, having already danced three acts of “Swan Lake” including the four Big Swans [in Act 3], I would race to change clothes in order to go out on the stage after the performance, the rehearsal started after 10:00 p.m. I was living in the dormitories at the time and it was the White Nights so I didn’t feel the time, but after “Swan Lake” we used the stage at night time to rehearse.
How important is your partner on the result of your work?
For me very important. It’s often even easier to go off of my partners’ emotions than to force my own emotions on him. On the technical level, it’s good when your partner is experienced. When I first danced with Nikita Korneyev, I had no strength to be nervous but he was afraid of me. It’s comfortable dancing with him. I warn my partners that they don’t need to help me, my legs will go up on their own. If you “help me”, it makes it more difficult for me, my muscles will contract to try to counteract the force and balance.
Do you have a favorite role?
Mekhmene Banu. Everything combines together beautifully: the wonderful music, choreography and emotions and there’s something to show the viewer. Of course, there are no joys in this libretto, but it’s very saturated choreography and plastique. The scenography and sets are minimal, but my first entrance on stage was in fact on the main stage in “Legend of Love”. Yes, it’s a depressing ballet. Viewers typically go to the theatre to receive joy, positive emotions and here you have more drama and sadness. And of course, how she suffers, not everyone loves that. But I adore this ballet. The Lilac Fairy is another favorite role, I’ve been dancing it a long time.
What role would you like to dance?
I have had so many dreams which aren’t likely to come true. At one time I had the opportunity to to go Munich, Igor Zelensky invited me. I could have danced Aegina in Grigorovich’s “Spartacus” there. We agreed upon it but Fateev told me “I advise you not to go.” Probably he feared that I’d stay there. But as they told me my entire career “there’s no one who is irreplaceable.” I was acutely aware of that.
Which role is easier for you?
There’s no such role. Each character has their own specific meaning, each ballet has its own stylistics. “Don Quixote” is not the same as “Carmen”. There’s a difference. Even in “Legend of Love”, the hands are specific. I have been rehearsing “Legend” for two days now and my arm muscles are already sore. Aurora also has its own: soft wrists.
Does the style at the Mariinsky Theatre differ? Is there a difference, for example, between Petersburg and Perm?
It’s blatant. When first I came to class here, the pedagogues often corrected me on my arms. The position of the arms differs and the way you present them. The difference is always visible in the spine and arms. As for the legs, I’m not sure. The Muscovites have always turned and jumped. I remember in 2017 I travelled to Perm and they held a discussion with students. They asked me if there’s a difference in how things are taught here. I gave the example of fondu and said “Yes, for example in the Vaganova method, you do it only this way, and here, this way, and in Moscow the preparation is done like this.”
I had goal when I arrived here to make my port de bras, “Petersburg arms”, so that no one would ever say that I studied in Perm. And now people say that I have the most Petersburg-ian arms! But the style does not come out of thin air.
Do you rest when you go on vacation or keep working?
I understood that unfortunately I have to work year round. It’s much easier to do exercises on the balcony in the summer while my son plays for 40 minutes. That’s much easier. I also run.
Do you want your son to dance?
No. He is of course more gifted than the others in his kindergarten, and for general development that’s good. A ballet dancer always knows how to fall down so that it’s softer. But the studios nowadays are cultivating acrobats. So I doubt at present time and under these circumstances that I’d send him to ballet class. He might do track and field. I’m lucky that in my childhood they didn’t torture us, they just developed our love for dance. And this is very helpful, you feel freer later on.
I think my son just has a different mindset. He has talent in technical things. He says he wants to be an engineer, and a doctor and an astronaut, a little bit of everything.
Do you want to teach?
I’ve always had more desire to work on rehabilitation. Since nobody every told me that you have to engage and work different muscle groups. Why did I kill myself in the corps de ballet? Because I didn’t know that you have to work with hallux valgus too. I wouldn’t work on the development of traits but their correct development. Not physical therapy per se, but there are lots of gymnastics-type programs, which help you to feel the muscles that we don’t use during ballet. And these are the muscles we tend to overwork in ballet, unfortunately.
There’s really good physical training on balls called RBT, and I already have a certificate in it. I studied professional ballet technique (PBT) using those balls. It’s a way to build muscles without loading the joints.
Is your discipline innate?
Discipline cannot be innate, you can only cultivate it in yourself. And most often it is self-discipline. Even if you raise a person under pressure for years, there’s not always a good result. Usually it turns out the opposite and they’re not disciplined
Do you have advice for young dancers?
Work using your mind. If something hurts, don’t contract it. If there is strength, don’t destroy things. Turn on your logic and common sense, many in the theatre don’t have that. If you want to be a ballerina, and immediately arrive as a soloist, you have to work a lot in order to stand alongside other soloists who are already in the theatre. Some people have a lot of ambitions but no talent. I had talent but I was afraid to dream about anything. And when people advise you to be bold… You know, being bold does not mean just coming to the theatre and showing yourself to the director. You have to be bold on stage.
It’s not an easy path if you do it the right way. It’s actually difficult, if you go through the corps de ballet, through trials and tribulations and through hate.
Do you believe in Fate?
No, I don’t believe in fate. I know only that we each have a purpose. You can follow that purpose or choose not to.
First image: Skorik as “Giselle”. Second image: Skorik as Odette in “Swan Lake”. Third, fourth and fifth images: Skorik in Act 2 of “Giselle”. Sixth, seventh and eighth images: Skorik as the Lilac Fairy in “The Sleeping Beauty”. Final two images: Skorik in “The Legend of Love”.
All images from Ms. Skorik’s personal archive, taken by Tatiana Kholkina.