Attitude To Ballet

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31188, 12 October 1966, Page 18

Attitude To Ballet

New Zealand men close their minds to ballet, according to Ivan Dragadze, the guest principal of the NewZealand Ballet Company, who is at present in Christchurch for the company’s spring season.

In an interview yesterday Mr Dragadze said he could not understand the attitude of the average New Zealand man.

“Most of them won’t come because they think there’s something cissy about the ballet,” Mr Dragadze said. “It may be graceful, but there is a lot of hard work involved. More physical energy is used in dancing than most labourers would use in a day. “I asked one fellow in the North Island if he would be going to the show. He said the wife would be, and seemed reluctant to admit as much as that When I asked him

why he didn't like ballet, he said he had never seen it, but he knew that it wasn’t for him.”

Mr Dragadze said a similar attitude had prevailed in England and Europe not so very long ago, but things were very different now. Ballet was recognised as a normal profession. and there was nothing cissified or peculiar about it. Mr Dragedze has been a professional dancer since he was 18. He has visited most of the countries of the world as a free-lance dancer.

“It was rather a precarious business at first, but it has got easier and easier,” he said. “I wanted the experience of working with different companies, and this was the best possible way.” Mr Dragadze and his wife both dance by invitation for companies all over the world.