Lady Mita

One hundred years ago Shulamith Messerer was born

Everyone called her Mita, this citizen of Moscow and citizen of the world. (In recent years, Shulamith had a strong quarrel with her niece Maya Plisetskaya, whom she raised when her sister Rachel, “the wife of an enemy of the people,” was arrested; it is unlikely that the offended Plisetskaya will deny the kinship of the lifestyle - if not the style of dance.) The dance was Moscow. - she studied in the capital, worked at the Bolshoi (where at first she was not even hired as a member of the corps de ballet staff, but for one-time appearances in the corps de ballet, but Shulamith did not worry, managing to take part in four performances a day on different stages, and earned more than the regular corps, which she proudly recalled seventy years later). The dance was cheerful, virtuosic, volatile - there were also lyrical roles, but the closer ones were gambling and adventurous heroines. Her signature role is Kitri in Don Quixote. The role about which only legends remain is Suok in “Three Fat Men” by Igor Moiseev. The role that suddenly fluttered out of the photograph archive onto the Bolshoi poster six years ago was Ballerina in “Bright Stream”. (It is clear that Alexei Ratmansky’s performance is not choreographically similar in any way to the old ballet by Fyodor Lopukhov, but it is not for nothing that a giant photograph from that old performance hung above the theater on the day of the premiere - it was important for the choreographer, who is seriously interested in the “pre-Gregorovich” Bolshoi, to indicate the relationship.) And of course, Jeanne in “The Flames of Paris” - calling the French people to storm the palace and triumphant in victory.

And a citizen of the world - since the 30s. No, she emigrated only in 1980 - the last straw was the stupidity of her “guardians,” who demanded, when the famous teacher Bolshoi had health problems while on tour in Japan, that she fly home and not go to the clinic there. “Relax on the plane” - and Shulamith exploded, grabbed her son Misha (he also took part in the tour) and went to the American embassy. She began traveling in the 30s, when she and her brother Asaf (also a superstar and one of the founders of the Moscow school of men's dance) went on tour around Europe. The producer called. Shulamith turned to Avel Enukidze for permission to travel. But how! Demonstrating the talent of a diplomat: “Here is the name. What do you recommend? They advised me to go. They ended up in Berlin on the exact day of the Reichstag fire, but they did their dance. In France, they took lessons from former imperial ballerinas - and snorted quietly, watching Kshesinskaya teach to an absurd American amateur who decided, out of all the ballet science, to comprehend only the art of fouetté. Even then they were thinking about teaching - although Shulamith began teaching seriously only after finishing her ballerina career.

But how to teach! She actually created Japanese ballet. She worked in South America (she was sent on business trips for many years - sometimes the Ministry of Culture tried to send someone else instead of her, but the customers were unforgiving). She worked for Neumeier and at the Paris Opera. She was awarded the Order of the British Empire. In Britain she became Dame Shulamith Messerer for her work in English ballet. And, having lived for a long time (she died four years ago), she left the matter in good hands - her son, Mikhail Messerer, became one of the best teachers in the world.

Anna GORDEEVA