An excerpt from Kalliopi's memoirs
As I walked onto the empty stage of the Champs Elysées Theater in Paris in avenue Montaigne, my intention was to work on some difficult steps and try to make them my own. We were the Grand Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas, performing our Paris winter season with the full length version of Sleeping Beauty. Suddenly our director Raymundo de Larraín appeared: “Kalliopi, I’d like you to start working on the leading role in Sleeping Beauty, Aurora. Begin on the solo variations and when you feel ready let me know! I’ll tell you then who your male partner will be”. And so it was.
Read MoreAn excerpt from Kalliopi's memoirs
Performing for a few days with a revue in Buenos Aires, I was fourteen years old. There I saw posters announcing that the American Ballet Theater was in town. Immediately next morning I went to the theatre where they were performing, entered the stage door and looked for someone to give me information. No one was around, but everything was wide open. I searched for a few minutes - still nobody. So I decided to look inside the open dressing rooms. They were full of wigs, hats, shoes and the dancers’ beautiful costumes in every colour; the tables were covered with theatrical make up. I almost tried a costume on, but didn’t quite dare. I sat down on a chair, looked at myself in the mirror and made a wish: to be dancing with them later in my life!
Read More”Sculpture enables me to continue my work as a dancer in a new medium. I feel the movements of the dance in my fingers as I work the clay.”
Kalliopi’s talent was first discovered by Anthony Tudor. She went on to perform with American Ballet Theater and the Marquis de Cuevas Company, then became Principal Dancer at Dutch National Ballet, Hamburg Opera and Geneva Opera House. She worked with some of the 20th century’s greatest artists such as George Balanchine, Leonid Massine, Serge Lifar, Marcia Haydée and Rosella Hightower.
Read More"Every object has its own story; a photo captures that story and retells it in light"
Photography, as every Greek knows, is writing with light. So I am attracted by the shadow on the wall rather than the person in front of it, by the sun coming through a transparent leaf rather than the branch itself.
While studying Philosophy at Oxford, I spent more time directing plays than reading Plato. Oxford undergraduate theatre is a common road into the profession. I took it, and spent a decade as a theatre director all round the UK. My work included shows of many kinds from Shakespeare to Ionesco, from Moliere to Pinter, a period teaching at RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), staging a fashion show and collaborating on a ballet with voices.
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