Interview with Maria Kochetkova, a Russian ballet dancer

Interview: Ally Ferraro & Guilherme Ferrari

Maria Kochetkova is a Russian ballet dancer. She was a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet between 2007 and 2018, and with the American Ballet Theatre between 2015 and 2017. 

You are in LA, working?

Yes, just for three weeks. I'm helping my teacher and coach, Marat Daukayev, putting together his The Nutcracker for his school.

Tell us about your childhood growing up in Russia, and the Bolshoi. How old were you when you got in?

I was ten years old when I started ballet. Prior to that, I was doing gymnastics and figure skating. Russian school is considered one of the best schools for ballet. Studying ballet anywhere is quite difficult, but there's probably more competition in Russia than in some other places.

Was it hard?

You have to pass through three rounds of exams. There is a lot of competition to enter, especially for girls. I was growing up during a really tough time in Russia. It was the nineties just after the Soviet Union had collapsed, so there were a lot of changes in the country, in our freedom and in how everything was suddenly allowed. And that was great on one side and also quite disturbing for the education system in Russia because suddenly anyone could teach and there was a lot of bribery, corruption, a lot of connections and money involved. Talent became secondary. I didn't understand all of this as a child, I only realized it later. I can't say that I have the best memories from school or I'd like to go back and experience it again. That said, I do appreciate the education that I got and what it prepared me for. And thankfully, I managed to survive as a decent human being. But I don't get particularly nostalgic about my school time.

Did you make any friends?

We were quite friendly and there was competition, of course, but it was a healthy competition. I feel like we were pushing each other more than our teachers did. There is one close friend I'm still in touch with and whom I've known now for 30 years. I think it's a little bit of a ballet cliché that the ballerinas don't get along with each other. We’re actually quite supportive of each other most of the time.

And then you left Russia and went to London when you were 18, did you like London?

Yes, I got an apprenticeship with the Royal Ballet in London after winning the Prix de Lausanne competition. It took me a while to understand it, but I can tell that I find London, especially now post-Brexit, quite conservative when it comes to ballet. I don’t know if it’s a heavy weight of tradition that stops it from developing or something else. I think there has to be room for whatever is happening in the world now. I'm quite a free person and I do enjoy being able to speak up and have a dialogue in the work space with Directors or Choreographers without being judged in a negative way. And I think that's where me and England always had a bit of a dissonance. I don’t believe in progress without communication and conversation. 

Then you went to San Francisco and became a principal, how did you decide that?

I saw the company perform in London and I absolutely loved them. I remember thinking that I would love to work for them. I sent my CV and VHS tape (!) and I got invited for the audition. I was very lucky to get a principal contract and that’s how I moved to San Francisco. 

Your instagram profile, you are very open, we love your project The Rite of Spring, can you tell us a bit about it?

Yes, it was really unusual and the idea actually came from the conductor and friend, Andre de Ridder, who I met a few years back. He's one of the most incredible conductors in the world. We got on very quickly. The way he sees and thinks about music is very similar to how I perceive dance. He had this idea, it was during COVID, that he would like me to choreograph and dance the sacrifice part of The Rite of Spring (the last 6 minutes of the piece) with the orchestra in Freiburg, Germany. Sometimes you talk about projects and they never really go past that. But later he insisted and he invited me again. And to be honest, I was hesitant because the Rite of Spring is something that is so grand, genius and in the way sacred that you don't touch it. It's been done and done so well that it’s scary for many, I’m sure, to approach. And I think that's because the music is so out of this world. It's really hard to come up with a dance that would match this score. And so at first, I spoke to my partner Sebastian Kloborg because Andre wanted me to choreograph it, and I said, look, I'm not really a choreographer, I’m happy to contribute, but I'm a dancer, so I would need to do it with my partner. And my partner said, "Absolutely not." for all the reasons above. Then we had a discussion, and I thought well, what if we look at it from a different angle and try to have a more theatrical and contemporary and female approach? The story is about a young virgin chosen by a tribe to be sacrificed to celebrate the return of spring which I find quite difficult for people to relate to nowadays. So what I was interested in exploring is what would the sacrifice be for women now, in the 21st century? When The Rite of Spring premiered in 1913, it was very provoking and shocking for the audience. Stravinsky was so ahead of his time and this is why the music is still alive and popular today. In my opinion It almost can not exist without this kind of discomfort and provocation. It comes with it. So in order to sustain it, I needed to do something that was completely different to what people would expect by coming to a concert. Because when people back in the day went to Champs-Élysées to see the Rite they just expected to hear nice music. And it wasn't. I imagine It was as if you were going to a Classical music concert and someone just played rave music live instead. If you actually compare the rhythm and the beat of The Rite of Spring, it's house music, it's rave, the same beat. So how could I still shock people and not for the sake of shocking, but for the sake of preserving that kind of atmosphere of the piece? So I thought that maybe I could explore what we sacrifice now as women. Obviously (unfortunately), being a conductor is a heavily male dominant profession. And when I did my  research and tried to look for female conductors who has done The Rite of Spring, I found one female conductor on the internet, which is just mind blowing. In 20 years of my career as a dancer I've danced in many places, theaters and worked with most ballet companies around the world, but I've only worked with female conductors twice, which is also quite shocking. I wanted to use these things and explore them, I only have 6 minutes to do what I have to do. As a female leader, you're still expected to be manly, bossy (horrible word) and have a bunch of unnecessary male qualities which is idiotic and wrong. In order to have a 'man's job', you still have to project this stiffness of a man, even as a female. That's why I decided to wear a men's silicon chest. In order to take the conductor's place I had to transform into a man. Because that's what in my opinion it takes most of the time. Women sacrifice their femininity, their family in order to prove they’re capable. I didn't have much space to dance just one panel so it had to be more theatrical and it was more of a statement for me, I don't normally choreograph. It’s probably the second time where I'm co-directing something and I have to say that as much as I was hesitant to do it, I really, really enjoyed exploring this different side of my craft. And I'm really happy that Andre and Sebastian have pushed me and helped me to do so.

Was it strange to experience that from another perspective?

Yes, I sat in the orchestra through the whole piece. I didn't want it to be like, "Oh, okay, my entrance, I come out, I dance, I leave." Normally as a dancer, you see darkness when you dance, you don't see the audience and in a concert hall when you listen to music, the lights in the auditorium are on. I saw people sitting in the audience and they even had their eyes closed because they knew exactly what they came to see. They knew the piece. And suddenly when I stood up in the back of the orchestra on a chair I heard buzzing and people were confused, they thought something went wrong and they started opening their eyes, they started moving on the chairs. I think it did have this feel of surprise because of the entrance and the fact that they couldn't tell if I was naked or not and the unpredictable ending where I switched places with Andre and conducted the last note. I also wasn't sure how the orchestra would react, so I'm really happy that they welcomed me and shifted their places around so I could walk through the musicians. It was a really, really special experience. It was just a one off performance, but I think that’s also what made it so special.

Ohad Naharin believes that you can dance forever, he is against all rules. And why not dance forever?

I think Gaga and ballet are different. It’s much harder to keep dancing on a high professional level past a certain age in ballet. I wish there would be more opportunities for retired ballet dancers. One can keep dancing as long as they desire, I just don't know if I would enjoy being an 80 year old ballerina portraying a 14 year old Princess Aurora. I don't think so, but I would definitely enjoy being in a dance community and keep creating after our normal retirement age which is usually around 40 years old. And as much as it's changing and people are dancing way longer than they used to in ballet I don't think I want to be in my tutu when I'm older. It's just something that does not relate to who I am. Gaga does not give you that age limit, but ballet just has more limitations and less freedom if you do it at a professional level. I think it’s great and beautiful when older people take up dance classes. I love watching them and being in a room with them, as they only do it for pure pleasure and it reminds me what dance is really about.