MY VERY FIRST BALLET TEACHER

Just click to listen to the music while you are reading

ADA PISANI PRIBILOIS

Ada Pisani Pribilois yes she was my first ballet teacher, and my mother as well.

As a teacher she was very demanding, strict you had to work and repeat thing not ten times but a million of times until  you would get perfection.

During classes you had to work, work and work, dress up and behave as she said and as the old ballet codes and good discipline was.

You were not allowed to talk or to laugh during your work, you just had to follow and built the passion of ballet.

After one hour of ballet or gymnastic you were getting out as if you have been climbing half of a mountain and not the full mountain, your legs were wobbling all the way due to the training.

But the next day another  full mountain you had to climb with no excuses.

Often she preferred to give classes with no music, which actually is the hardest.

In case you were not working properly a enchainement or combination either at the Barre or in the Centre, you really had the feeling to be sent to the gallows.

During rehearsals or Solo rehearsal variations you were not allowed to change nothing, that was the step and choreography and you had to do it with no discussion.

Rarely she was looking at you and tell you: Bravo

When she was in the good days she would tell you:

Not bad, but I expect much more and much better work.

or: It's not a flop but you can do much better than this. 

As a mother: Very similar as the teacher, I would say, more military, more strict.

Her ballet shoe was flying much better that an air-drone and funnily her ballet shoe was always landing on my head, she never missed her landings.

However said all that my mother was a good teacher indeed for her time.

Many students who have studied ballet with her will remember her strange accent when she was counting which sounded more like:

Un, deux y trouaaaaaa,  y  quattttterrr!

Which in other words stand for One Two and Thruueeeee and Foaaar!

Referring to discipline which one would I opt for between the mother or the teacher?

Well the feeling was very similar I would say, as if you are cooked alive on a giant barbecue, one day you would be cooked on the left and the other day on the right ! 

Thank you dear Mum, thanks to your discipline I keep loving and nurturing the art of ballet, passing on your legacy.