A day in the life of a ballerina - dizzying turns, broken shoes and wig fittings
As I watch Mayara Magri balance en pointe, as she tries to perfect one of the most popular but perilous moves in ballet, it feels unfair to call her performance effortless.
One of the Royal Ballet's Principal dancers, her movements are fluid, beautiful and seamless, but having glimpsed the work that goes into them, I know there's far more than meets the eye.
Ensconced within the Royal Opera House, not everyone gets to see the magic worked inside this rehearsal space. Here, I'm lucky enough to watch Mayara prepare for her starring role as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty.
The Mirror went behind the scenes at the Royal Ballet (Philip Coburn /Daily Mirror)True, audiences are in for a treat when the company takes to the stage. But there's nothing like seeing dancers up close, watching their muscles move as they lift their legs above their heads, or listening to their hurried breath after completing a series of dizzying turns.
It is away from the spotlights and costumes and wigs, when you truly see the dancer and can begin to understand the artistry, skill, and sheer hard work behind every arabesque or pirouette.
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Mayara's busy day did not start in this rehearsal room. When I first met the Brazilian ballerina earlier this morning, she was preparing for the hours ahead on her feet, with a visit to the Royal Ballet's healthcare suite.
Mayara started dancing when she was eight (Philip Coburn /Daily Mirror)
She takes great care to look after her physical health (Philip Coburn /Daily Mirror)The state-of-the-art suite boasts a gym, pilates equipment and physio. But don't imagine a relaxing setup, as Mayara told me it would be impossible to fall asleep during the foot massage she was receiving. Indeed, she wasn't being pampered - although she was well looked after - as the expert moved her feet every which way, using his expertise to help relieve the pressure caused by intensive pointe work.
Like most classical ballets, The Sleeping Beauty involves lots of dancing en pointe - swirling, stepping and balancing on your toes - so it's little surprise our conversation turned to the dancer's pointe shoes. Mayara explained she can work through as many as five pairs a week, though she gave two to three pairs as her more moderate average.
But shockingly to those of us who are uninitiated, some ballerinas are known to use up to three pairs per performance, as one of the company's trained pointe shoe technicians later told me when Mayara left to attend morning class.
Following a behind-the-scenes tour of the health suite, I was treated to a glimpse inside the company's shoe room, where each female dancer has between 50-150 pairs of pointe shoes waiting to be customised, and learned some of the work that goes into preparing them.
Dancers go through hundreds of shoes every season (Philip Coburn /Daily Mirror)Even after the technicians order bespoke shoes and make requested moderations, each dancer must 'break in' their shoes and sew on extras to their liking.
The personal process - one Mayara likes to complete herself - often involves cracking, snapping and bending, before it starts all over again when the dancers discard their 'dead' shoes.
Luckily, the Royal Ballet has a number of innovative ways to reuse the shoes, which are recycled, signed for fans or given out on family outreach days.
Unluckily, pointe shoes are made from a number of natural materials, including flour, meaning it is not unheard of to find weevils inside them, according to the technician I met. But any insects are quickly taken care of, as the no-nonsense worker reassured me.
It's not unheard of to find weevils inside old pointe shoes (Andrej Uspenski)Safely out of reach of any weevils, I continued my tour by wandering around the section of the opera house open to the public, while Mayara went for a wig fitting.
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On the day I met her, she was preparing for three different ballets, as she told me when we later got a moment to ourselves ahead of her rehearsal.
After making my way through a number of twisting corridors, and spotting a tour of children watching a ballerina in awe, I joined Mayara in one of the dancers' private spaces, where we finally got the chance to sit down together.
Mayara (pictured with dancer Matthew Ball) secured her dream job (Andrej Uspenski)Here, she readied herself in her rehearsal tutu and prepared her all-important pointe shoes, looking completely at ease as she answered questions about her sought-after job - one millions of dancers, including Mayara herself, spend years dreaming about.
Mayara told me she first stepped foot in a dance studio aged eight, when she attended an after-school class with a friend in her native Brazil. But the youngster, who then won a scholarship to take dance lessons, quickly set her sights on the Royal Ballet.
After years of hard work, as a teenager, she won a scholarship to attend the Royal Ballet School and a year later she was invited to join the company.
"It was always the company I wanted to join because I used to watch the DVDs," she recalled.
Now, after rising up the ranks, Mayara is a principal dancer with the company and she's performed a number of iconic roles, including Swan Lake's Odette, which she gives as her career highlight to date.
"It's like a life dream, really," she said of her appointment. "When it happened I couldn't believe I had achieved it."
Now in her tenth season with the company, the newly-qualified teacher finds herself wondering what's next.
"You reach a point where you're like 'what else?' And I'm living that moment of 'What else?'" she explained. "When you have what you always aimed for, how can you make it special every day with every role we play?"
It's an exciting prospect, she added, one that allows her to continue to develop her artistry and enjoy a variety of roles, including some she never imagined for herself, like The Sleeping Beauty's Aurora.
Olga Evreinoff and Mayara Magri in rehearsal for The Sleeping Beauty (Andrej Uspenski)"I've always wanted to do Aurora. I think a lot of people and even myself didn't believe that it would be a ballet that is my thing," she said, talking of her exuberant personality onstage which she noted often sees her cast 'as the mistress' in certain ballets.
However, she's proved herself wrong. "I found a way to play the role and still be myself and bring new things out of my work," Mayara beamed. "It's been really nice finding another side of me as a dancer."
What the ballerina will go on to achieve next remains to be seen. But wherever she performs, you'd be lucky to find yourself in the front row.
Amber met Mayara during rehearsals earlier this year. The Royal Ballet's The Sleeping Beauty runs May 6 to June 6.
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