“When I hear a rocket, I’m afraid of the theater”

A week ago, he heard the sound of a cruise missile fired by Russia against the Odessa factory, but when asked if he was scared, Ukrainian historical dancer Svetlana Antipova did not even think about herself, but about the place where she created her story. : “I’m afraid of the theater.”

Her hands are holding a green folder full of photos and newspaper clippings. In the large empty room of her dance studio, covered with mirrors and ballet bars, 76-year-old Antipova, who was the prima ballerina of the Odessa Ballet decades ago, shows pictures of her students with greater passion than her own. He stops sadly at one of them: “Now he had to go to Germany. It was very professional, I probably lost my star… “.

The Ukrainian dancer, a dance guide in Odessa, follows the fate of many of her students and is still thinking about how she will arrange upcoming shows that her students have worked hard on and are paralyzed by the war. Now his school dancers, whose repertoire is part of the city’s symbolic theater program, are scattered throughout Europe.

Red hair and colorful clothes, according to Antipova’s son, have a “special” character. Among the photos she shows, she does not include her nine-year-old granddaughter Margarita, who follows online ballet lessons from Moldova, which her grandmother teaches, as published by todaytimeslive.com. “He has very good conditions and a very good memory, but he still has to stretch his leg slightly,” the dancer tells us. From Costa Rica, a town near the Moldovan capital where she ran away with her mother and brother, a little girl described Svetlana as two people in one: a grandmother and a teacher.

And now the teacher is talking and not the grandmother. Because when the grandmother starts talking, the distance transmitted during the analysis of Margarita’s movements is violated, the distance that prevents the insertion of the granddaughter’s photo in the green folder. When Grandma speaks, her eyes light up, Antipova smiles and nods. “I miss my grandchildren very much. “The next day Margo was sick and I said, ‘Bring them here,'” said the artist, who refuses to leave Odessa. not now.

“I could go to so many countries, I have dancing friends everywhere, but I do not want to go,” he said. His sons and daughter insisted that he do so, but they had already refused. Antipova wants to be close to them. One of them is a member of the Territorial Guard and fears that something will happen, but he remains for himself. Prefers to stay at home, in Odessa, with cats and dogs and not too far from the theater.

“I am afraid that something will happen to the theater. It is so beautiful that something happens … I am afraid. “When this sound is heard from the sky, I think of the theater,” the dancer repeats. The historic building, the Odessa Opera House, has been fortified for more than a month with sandbags, barricades and hedgehog barricades to prevent a possible ground attack by Russian troops. Seeing her like this is very painful for everyone.

Laughter erupts when he realizes that he is talking more about the fear of demolition of a symbolic building than about his own safety. Antimova shrugs and shakes her head while her son smiles. He knows: “I lived in that theater … I left my children ‘abandoned’ from the theater,” he says. They laugh again.

She is the director of Svetlana Antipova Dance Studio, whose works have been performed at the Odessa Theater, a professional children’s show, of which she proudly speaks. The war changed everything. “Most of my students have gone to different countries, some are already dancing. I know some who have already started working abroad and I wonder if they will return … We have incredible shows here but the team is team together. “When everyone leaves and does not return, it is difficult to fix everything and organize everything,” he said. “I hope everything will pass soon, but we do not know what is in the human head,” he said, referring to Putin. “Even if it ends, I do not know what I am going to do next.”

The woman remembers her last face-to-face ballet lesson. On February 23rd. Then there was talk of the possibility of war, but he did not believe it. “We were here,” he says, pointing to the empty hall of mirrors. “We were making nutcracker. I just remember it was normal. “We did not think about war, only about dancing.” Now the conflict is over.

While he tries to conduct several online lessons with his students, especially the younger ones, to avoid disconnecting them from dancing, he is angry at the big differences that exist with face-to-face lessons, as older dancers do not have enough space and the camera sometimes prevents all mistakes. To correct, though he tries to detect them. These are the same classes that her granddaughter Margot follows from a resort that has been converted into a refugee reception center in one of the Moldovan cities.

He could have resumed lessons with students who are still in Odessa, but prefers to avoid student safety for the time being: “What if something happens? If there is a siren or a bomb, what should be done? Let’s try a little. ”

There is a fear that affects you. Fear of stopping. How can it affect you to suddenly stop working at your age. “I worked until night, every day. I’m used to working every day, but I can do nothing today. It’s very bad for me and I do not know how to proceed because I’m not young enough to adapt … Understanding that I’m not working, no matter how long it may take, is too much. hard”. The war took away his favorite job for more than a month.

As never before, he loves to keep memories these weeks. The classes taught their students as well as their years of study. Antioch affirms her nostalgia for previous ballet courses, a discipline she seeks to impose on her classes. Those years when he danced in the best theaters in the world. “He had a very interesting life,” the dancer added when he showed a newspaper excerpt from the year he left the stage to teach.

Antiova is moving fast, despite the injury she has had on one of her knees for two years. Indicates objects for dance classes as if we were at his house. The recipient works two days a week from the start of the war. “A lot of work,” ironically. He laughs and angrily looks at the empty objects that his students filled with life just a month and a half ago, and the piano music he has not played since February 24th.