11-27-2003, 04:44 AM
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#5 (permalink)
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Right Now
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She has been reinstated.
She is very tall for a ballerina, but the article leans towards her larger than typical ego as her biggest problem. I think it will be only a matter of time before she is fired again, maybe when the ballet troupe stops selling out performances.
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Quote:
"Heavy" ballerina reinstated
AFP
27nov03
A COURT yesterday ordered Russia's Bolshoi theatre to reinstate a ballerina fired for being too heavy, Russian media said.
Moscow's Tverskoi court ruled that Anastasiya Volochkova had been illegally dismissed and ordered the Bolshoi to pay her the equivalent of $8,900 in damages, the RIA Novosti news agency said.
The simmering feud between the famed theatre and Volochkova flared in September, when the Bolshoi said the blonde ballerina with model looks was too heavy for male partners to lift, and fired her.
The Bolshoi's lawyer Dmitri Lobatchev said yesterday the theatre would appeal the court's decision.
Volochkova has for months wrangled with the Bolshoi, with the labour ministry weighing in on her side and the media looking on in fascination.
The theatre said that the dancer was demanding unreasonable terms and Volochkova retorted that the troupe was simply looking for an excuse to get rid of her.
On September 16 the theatre fired Volochkova citing problems with her "physical form."
"Her physical form is definitely a serious problem," Bolshoi director Anatoly Iksanov told Russian television of the ballerina who has danced leads in such classics as Swan Lake and Giselle.
The theatre said the dancer, who at a reported 1.68 metres is taller than average ballerinas, was simply too heavy for male partners to lift safely.
"Classical ballet is intended for duets, with many lifts, and the ballet's artists are not in condition to support this, since they themselves are worried about their physical form," Iksanov said at the time. "I don't consider it moral to force them to do so."
The Russian press, however, has reported that the dispute may have to do more with Volochkova's ego than her size.
When Volochkova's last partner refused to carry on dancing with her, "the theatre got a great chance to rid itself of the burdensome diva with a special status in Russian pop culture," the Kommersant newspaper wrote recently.
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