Nadya Timofeyeva: “The smarter the body, the more valuable it is”

The artistic director of the Jerusalem Ballet talks about how a dancer's brain works, about the separation of body and consciousness, about foot training and the tip of the pointe shoe, and why robots don’t belong in ballet

She calls her students “little ones” and considers herself their mother; the little ones believe that ballet is the best thing in life (would you dare argue?). After all, they have the chance, as the wonderful ballet historian Levinson wrote, to dance what Kant thought, what Novalis sang, and what Hoffmann fantasized. And in general, a ballet school is nothing like what you’ve seen in movies like “The Bolshoi,” “Life on Pointe,” or, heaven forbid, in “Suspiria.” Especially not the Jerusalem Ballet School; it’s about creating movement from your body, becoming aware of yourself and your partners in space, and thinking about the world through dance (I don’t like big words, but there’s no other way to put it—the topic is just too grand). It’s also a very delicate and elegant look into the future, where everyone will know how to imbue the body with meaning and turn it into an emotional, beautifully sculpted entity. In other words, a naturally formed dancer.

Nadya Timofeyeva, the artistic director of the Jerusalem Ballet School and the Jerusalem Ballet Company, graduated from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, danced with the Kremlin Ballet, and in 2004, along with her mother—the legendary ballerina Nina Timofeyeva—founded a ballet studio in Jerusalem. Today, this special universe, named after Nina Timofeyeva, continues to develop academic traditions in a completely new format.

                                      Photo by Maya Iltus

Note that in our Israel there was no Louis XIV, the founder of the oldest ballet school that to this day supplies the world with distinguished étoiles; all the decrees had to be invented and implemented on our own. So, Nina and Nadya created L'école de danse in the Holy Land in the best traditions and the highest understanding. In any case, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Jerusalem Ballet School.

Nadya Timofeyeva has spent all these years developing a new formula for beauty. She teaches children not only the perfect ballet positions but also how to change their internal sense of self. So, if your children’s legs are not the embodiment of truth, it’s time to seek out the trurh and listen to our conversation—twenty years later.

N.T.: Imagine: you’re standing on the tip of your pointe shoes – the platform used to be the size of a shekel, now they’re as wide as five shekels; but such a surface compared to the body’s mass is nothing! And here you are standing on one leg, balancing on that tiny spot… How? The dancer must be trained to the point where the body thinks for itself.

L.G.: Verlaine wrote wonderfully (about the art of poetry, art poétique, but I see ballet in it): “De la musique avant toute chose, Et pour cela préfère l’Impair Plus vague et plus soluble dans l’air, Sans rien en lui qui pèse ou qui pose.” What do you prefer, Nadya? Who do you see first and foremost in your students and dancers?

N.T.: First of all, I see a person with their various systems—physiology, psyche, delicate spiritual structure; and each requires a special approach. While they are still young, 4-5 years old, the classes are conducted in a playful, soft manner—and it continues this way until they’re about 8-9 years old when they are introduced to work and discipline. It’s interesting: I’ve always understood from the first to the last step what ballet is; I saw the whole staircase, so to speak. But modern children, when they come to me, don’t truly understand what ballet is. That it’s hard work, that you have to learn to work and strive—only then are results possible. But at first, results are not the main thing. The goal of the samurai is his path. Therefore, you need to turn off thoughts (it’s easier for little ones) about how good or bad you are in this art—and just dedicate your entire consciousness and concentration to the learning process. I tell my students, “Your brain and I are working together on your body.” I clearly explain how to separate one’s consciousness, ego, feelings, and body. I am not the body. The body is a perfect computer that can be trained, conditioned, and tuned for a specific art form. And the faster a person can detach themselves from their body and focus on the process, the faster they learn.

L.G.: Easier said than done…

N.T.: It’s easy if a person has a light character. However, people with light characters don’t come to me; only perfectionists come, with all the accompanying complexes and problems. Each of them wants to see themselves as successful, but to be successful, you need to work hard for ten years, every day.

                                       Photo by Yves Assouline

L.G.: You said “work hard,” and I (OMG!) imagined a modern Israeli child…

N.T.: It happens gradually; we start tightening the screws after the age of 12. That’s when consciousness begins to manifest. By that time, the child already has several years of learning behind them. This is why I prefer to take the little ones so that by the age of 12, they become individuals who understand that they need to work and want to work. The rest don’t stay with us.

L.G.: By the way, I was quite impressed by the walls of your school—literally, too; there’s no doubt that the genius loci is present there.

N.T.: It’s nice to hear that. You probably noticed that we have three halls—in one hall, there are the little ones, in the next, the older ones, and in the next, even older, where the results are already visible. So, we take the tiny ones by the hand, sit them down, and explain: “Look, this is far away and difficult to imagine, but you will be like this.” We show photos and videos of today’s beauties who already resemble dancers and ballerinas, but once they were just ducklings who could only skate, run, laugh, and do nothing. Of course, there are exceptions when very serious little ones come—like little old men. They progress very quickly, but the problem with gifted and serious children is that they quickly become bored with their peers. They need a special program because while the rest of the class is doing one exercise, these kids have already done it three times and are asking: “What’s next?”

L.G.: Does size matter in this case? Would you accept a child with a robust build or only one who is slim and delicate?

N.T.: There is a selection by weight—I explain to parents that if I accept their child, I might harm them because certain things are simply harmful to do if overweight. In this case, I recommend which sport the child should pursue to receive aerobic exercise. Our load is complex—it’s both strength and coordination, musicality, rhythm, artistry, and even the ability to mimic the teacher.

L.G.: Does weight limit a dancer in certain movements?

N.T.: There are weight limits that make it impossible to engage in duet dancing because injuries start to occur. I am against a child starving, but I am for a child maintaining a form that doesn’t injure them and allows them to achieve their dream. One way or another, if there is no excess weight with the danger of injury, I accept them. You also have to look at the parents. There are chubby kids, but the father and mother are tall and thin—and you understand: the child has good genes. Besides, a professional can literally tell at a glance what potential the child has.

                               Photo by Leonid Khromchenko

L.G.: And what about the age limit?

N.T.: I still prefer to take five-year-olds because older kids find it harder to integrate into the system. When you start working with little ones for an hour and a half twice a week, five years later, they’re already training four times a week for three hours. It’s very hard to start from scratch in such a group. Again, there are exceptions—let’s say children from rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming adapt well.

L.G.: Rhythmic gymnastics now resembles ballet a lot, it has become so dance-like.

N.T.: However, it’s a completely different teaching methodology—everything is based on different muscles. There’s a huge difference between rhythmic gymnastics and ballet. Gymnasts have specific apparatus they must train with; they hold their hips differently… But in ballet, everything is based on properly placing the body—this is called hip placement; arms are positioned differently, coordination is different, the work with music is different… So, it’s a completely different culture. But they intersect, and this intersection allows me to accept gymnast children—but not older than 11-12 years. Gymnastics habits are so strong that it’s almost impossible to retrain the body for ballet afterward. The body is accustomed; the body is an amazing mechanism with a tremendous memory, a body memory—you start teaching and train the child in basics that become second nature. When we eat, we don’t think about how to put the spoon in our mouth. The same goes for ballet—the most complex things eventually happen automatically. It’s a crazy coordination that Chernygovskaya talks about wonderfully; she has a whole section where she explains how the dancer’s brain works. Besides, sometimes prodigies come to me, and age is not so important, but they have their own problem: a very small percentage of them become professionals. Usually, by the age of 18, they leave ballet because they have already danced everything. You have to constantly fuel their desire so that they retain the passion to continue. They have already been taken to all sorts of competitions, they have received all the awards... And when you have already done everything and achieved everything, what else is there?

                                         Photo by Yves Assouline

L.G.: Who do they become?

N.T.: Many go into physiotherapy or medicine, and some even pursue entirely different professions. But if they still have room to grow, they might become choreographers.

L.G.: Do you ask your students to improvise to understand what their bodies are capable of?

N.T.: Absolutely! From a very young age. We set aside time for improvisation in every lesson. At the age of 10, the students are introduced to a modern dance teacher—we have a wonderful instructor, my close friend Oded Ronen, who is both a choreographer and a dancer. He teaches them the basics of modern dance and improvisation. But not right away, I must emphasize—I’m against starting modern dance too early, as it’s then very difficult to retrain them for classical ballet. The movement is different, the understanding of the body is different, the muscles used are differently. So first, we teach the foundations of classical ballet, and then we layer everything else on top.

L.G.: Nowadays, choreography that isn’t strictly classical but still incorporates a variety of techniques is quite esteemed.

N.T.: That’s exactly what we teach at our school. But first and foremost, we teach the fundamentals of classical ballet, which, again, has different schools and systems. Recently, I’ve gained a wonderful partner, a new immigrant from South Africa, Martin Schoenberg. He’s an absolutely amazing person, a brilliant teacher. He graduated from the Princess Grace Academy in Monaco, danced in Switzerland and Belgium, returned to South Africa—where he had a school and a company—and two years ago, he immigrated to Israel.

L.G.: Schoenberg, you say?

N.T.: He’s the great-nephew of the composer. We met by chance—and ended up spending 10-12 hours together every day (laughs). I realized that this person can bring a lot to our school and to me personally, offering new perspectives on old traditions. I’ve had and still have wonderful teachers—Ichina Sherovin, Yulia Muster, Oriana Yohanan, Sari Mendelson—but Martin is something special. Today, he’s a teacher, head rehearsal director, and choreographer at our school. Like me, he choreographs, directs, and teaches. It’s very convenient—we perform the same functions from different perspectives, and combining those perspectives yields noticeably effective results.

                                 Photo by Anastasiia Korneeva

L.G.: And what is his point of view?

N.T.: You could say it’s a European perspective, what I call a "Polish" approach to the Vaganova system, where you train the feet differently. I teach strictly according to the Vaganova system, which I’ve adapted to local realities. Martin is well acquainted with the methods of Vaganova, Cechetti, RAD (Royal Academy of Dance in London), and others, but he has his own practice of training and educating children. It’s an anatomical approach to everything. Our Jewish children are very smart, even though they sometimes lack patience and are spoiled; they are extremely interested in how everything works. While in Russia we were told "this is how it should be" without going into anatomical details, here we explain in all the details how to manage your own body. How to establish a connection between the brain and the muscles, how the muscles control the bones and the entire apparatus. So, our children understand which muscle attaches where, what its function is, and what exercises to do to develop it.

L.G.: The height of the dancer also matters, doesn’t it? It’s more difficult for tall people with long legs and arms to perform certain moves, isn’t it?

N.T.: Of course, it matters a lot. The taller you are, the more difficult it is. Although for tall people everything looks much more beautiful. The main thing is that the dancer is proportionate to the stage on which they are performing. For example, I have a student, Yuval Cohen, who is 1.90 meters tall. I sent him to the Vaganova Academy, where he studied for two years, graduated, and is now dancing with the Philadelphia Ballet. Because for his height, we don’t have stages. It’s like keeping a large bird in a small cage. He would do one jump and cross the entire hall. Of course, I would have loved for him to stay with me—but what should I have done, confine a child in a country that’s too small for him?

                                 Photo by Nadya Timofeyeva

L.G.: At the Vaganova Academy, they teach in Russian, right? How did the Israeli boy manage with that?

N.T.: Can you imagine, he learned Russian on his own? Although he did have a Russian nanny. By the way, Yuval initially studied with us, then dropped out, and after a year, he matured and came back. So, I told him—you wasted a year, plus you grew 10 centimeters; you’re like a boiled noodle now. What am I supposed to do with you? Now my noodle is a star in America.

L.G.: I’ve heard somewhere that lately there’s a trend to select only tall dancers for classical ballet.

N.T.: It’s not exactly like that. There are companies that prefer taller dancers—for example, in Germany, or at Eifman’s, the minimum height for girls is 1.75 meters, and boys are almost two meters. And then there’s the Royal Ballet, where dancers are quite short. So, when we’re sending children abroad, I always say: you need to understand which company suits your physical attributes. Each company has its own look.

L.G.: What traditions did the Jerusalem Ballet School inherit from your mother, Nina Timofeeva?

N.T.: First of all, of course, the system that my mother was trained in and that I was trained in. I was fortunate—when I was 14, my mother was already taking me to the Bolshoi Theatre for lessons with Marina Timofeevna Semyonova, where I absorbed the traditions in the best way. Traditions, of course, are passed down orally. So, teaching these traditions over Zoom is impossible. By the way, my grandmother, Frida Fedorovna Saliman, was a piano teacher and accompanist at the Russian Ballet Academy during Vaganova’s time. There you go—traditions! Secondly, a certain spirit—my mother and her generation were completely devoted; they gave everything to dance, their body, their soul, and their lives. When they stopped dancing, they simply couldn’t survive. Thirdly, professionalism based on the methodology of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova with some additions—my mother refined it according to the circumstances. I was very lucky in this life; I was born into an atmosphere where you understood that you served the theater and the art unconditionally. So, my mother’s traditions are not just an education system; they are a way of life.

My mother’s traditions are not just an education system; they are a way of life.

                 Three generations: photo from the family archive

L.G.: Has it become like that for your little ones too—how do they manage to keep up with regular school?

N.T.: Some manage to finish their last years of school through external studies to devote more time to ballet. One such girl, Maayan Fishman, received a scholarship for an internship in Spain with Nacho Duato and was recently awarded a scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Yarden Zana was admitted to the Ballet Academy at the Vienna State Opera. Omer Mizrahi is in his second year in Stuttgart—it’s very difficult to get into that school. Miri Lapidus, Shay Karp, Mor Peleg, and Yuval all graduated from the Vaganova Russian Ballet Academy, and Max Politzan is studying there now.

L.G.: Do your graduates dance all over the world?

N.T.: Yes, and in our country too. In Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, Batsheva, Kamea Dance Company… Many are dancing contemporary.

L.G.: A pressing question: what is a ballerina’s diet like?

N.T.: Starvation is out of the question. Because when a person works so much, everything burns off. You just need to have the right nutrition. You need to feed your body so that it can function. My dancers work 8-10 hours a day, and they eat carbohydrates, they eat everything. But if you have a dream and your body type doesn’t match your dream, you need to figure out what your diet should be so that you’re not hungry. I believe that fasting at a young age is especially harmful to mental health. A child who is always hungry only thinks about food. When a child is hungry—it’s bad because they are irritable; when they are very full—it’s also bad because they experience dumping syndrome. My mother taught me to eat. She was always starving and considered herself fat. When I went to school, I was small and chubby, and my first teacher told the girls they needed to keep an eye on me so I wouldn’t eat anything because I was fat. She even gave me the nickname “Bun,” sometimes calling me “Donut.” When I told my mother about this, she said: we’ll be smarter; you’ll take a big sandwich to school, go where no one can see you, eat it, and then come back and act like you’re terribly hungry. That’s what I did, and a year later, I was transferred to another teacher who liked me and didn’t call me “Bun.” When I needed to lose weight before exams, my mother said: you need to eat often and a little. I would take an egg, chicken, cucumber, apple, and some porridge separately—and eat them as soon as I started feeling hungry. And I would lose two or three kilos a week. This helped me throughout my life. But here, children have huge problems; if they go on a diet, they don’t lose weight. I can’t understand why. Maybe it’s the air—we live in the mountains with high humidity… Either natural factors affect it, or it’s just genetics.

L.G.: You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that you need to have the talent to mimic the teacher. Is that so difficult?

N.T.: 99 percent of people don’t see what you’re showing them. They don’t see that your arm is not at 90 degrees but at 100 or 110. Or that your head is turned not to the right, but to the left. This happens all the time—a student looks at you and doesn’t see… But if you do something wrong—the body won’t understand. The body memorizes a large number of repetitions. And if you do something incorrectly several times, the body will remember that movement as correct.

                                 Photo by Anastasiia Korneeva

L.G.: You maintain close relationships with your graduates, don’t you?

N.T.: Oh yes, we constantly call and text each other. It’s a great joy when your students achieve great heights. You remember them as tiny tots who didn’t know anything. I have Anaelka, Anael Zateikin, who has been with me since she was four, from my very first graduating class, from my first little ones. Now she’s 24 years old, a prima ballerina in my troupe, the only one who has stayed since the very first day. We often watch videos together—here she is at 4 years old, 5 years old, 7 years old, and here she is at 15… It’s very touching.

With every child, you experience their growing up. I feel like a mother to my children. We go through all their life’s hardships, injuries, loves, and disappointments together… Everything affects dance. That’s why you always dig into what’s happening in your student’s life because it affects their success.

L.G.: Treating each one like your own child requires immense dedication…

N.T.: It’s impossible any other way. You have to invest in each one. That’s why there are endless texts at night, and the little ones need to record their homework on video and send it to me. They think ballet is just about a beautiful costume, lighting, nice music, and fairies on pointe shoes. What lies behind it is still hidden from them. As a result, my workday starts at 9 AM and doesn’t end until at least midnight. Of course, family involvement in the development of a young ballerina or dancer is especially important—the support, interest, and understanding of parents have a huge impact on the child’s success. That’s why I am endlessly grateful to the parents who help us achieve results, the parents with whom we go through the whole journey together, and the parents with an inexhaustible supply of patience.

L.G.: Returning to your earlier statement: why has the toe box on pointe shoes increased?

N.T.: Because people are more concerned about the health of their feet now. When the toe box is reduced to just a small area, the toes are very squeezed, and the bones protrude and deform, especially on the big toe. Plus, it’s very uncomfortable to stand. I have my mother’s first pair of shoes—they look like a sadistic device. I can’t imagine how women danced in such shoes, how they managed to turn in them, as there was absolutely no stability… When my mother was older and dancing at the Bolshoi Theatre, the toe box became larger, and now it’s even bigger; it depends on the size and width of the ballerina’s foot. There are wider and narrower pointe shoes. There is also a technique – you can manually cover the toe box to create a firm contour; when you’re on balance, you can feel the stitching at the end of the toe box, and it’s convenient to lean on it. It provides a sense of balance and reduces the protruding bones…

Nowadays, people have learned to take better care of foot health. It’s convenient, but it’s less beautiful. What was done before was for the sake of beauty. The ballerina stood on a needle, and her foot was refined to an extreme. There was no sense of visual contact with the floor. She was all inviting kisses, all ethereal—but all at the expense of her health. Of course, the technique was different. When Maria Taglioni first went on pointe, she had a stiff insole. Many actually thought it was cork or plaster.

                           Photo by Anastasiia Korneeva

L.G.: Here you have “a foot—a delicate rose petal, a dream wrapped in satin…”

N.T.: Oh yes… Interestingly, to this day, there are two types of pointe shoes, and recently a third type has appeared, but it’s not yet in production. So, the first type—glue and fabric. A certain amount of fabric is applied to a wooden last, coated with glue, more fabric, more glue, and then they are placed in an oven. The second type—plastic. A plastic cup inside the shoe that cannot be broken. Glue and fabric shoes are delicate; they don’t last as long, they need to be replaced more often, they are a bit cheaper, but they wear out very quickly. Plastic shoes last much longer, but they come with their own problems. They don’t allow air to pass through, which leads to fungal infections, toenails turning blue, and it’s harder to descend from demi-pointe—that’s the descent when you go down from pointe shoes. You descend not on the heel but on three-quarters of the foot, meaning you need to pull up so strongly that the descent isn’t noticeable. This is the difference between the French and Russian schools. At one time, due to the Iron Curtain, Russian ballet shoes were made of wood. Glue and a cardboard insole, which was impossible to mold properly, as it broke apart and turned into nothing when you tried to mold it. So, you would immediately break the shoes and couldn’t descend smoothly—which made the exit from pointe shoes quite rough. In the West, shoes were made with better quality; they developed a special technique for descending from the toes and transitioning to flat feet. If you look at Plisetskaya or Dudinskaya, or ballerinas from that time—how they walk on stage, how they descend from turns—you’ll notice that they descend from pointe shoes almost immediately to a full foot. And if you look at modern ballerinas who dance at the Grand Opéra, their technique is completely different. Martin Schönberg brought this technique to our school. The foot is developed differently, and there is a completely different culture of handling pointe shoes and descending from the toes, a kind of feline feeling, a soft touch to the floor—you touch what seems like a wooden shoe, but you feel the floor softly, you know how to descend. Technique is not just about what you’ve achieved; technique is when you didn’t succeed, but no one noticed.

Technique is not just about what you’ve achieved; technique is when you didn’t succeed, but no one noticed.

L.G.: Does it often not work out?

N.T.: You’re always playing a lottery. There’s always a chance that it won’t turn out. And you should have several ways to make it look beautiful even if it doesn’t work out.
There are ballerinas of the highest class—like Lopatkina, for example, who wasn’t an insanely technical ballerina. Due to her immense height, she had to become extremely thin so she could be lifted. When a ballerina weighs fifty kilograms at 1.80 meters, that’s a thirty-kilogram deficit; we say minus twenty is already a lot, and at minus thirty you look like a real dystrophic. Clearly, she ate practically nothing, otherwise, it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve that. And when a person doesn’t eat and is so thin, they are not muscular. All technique based on intense physical strength is very complex. You need to be a supermaster to perform technically complex moves like a ballerina who is 1.55, 1.60, or 1.65 meters tall. Different levels! And when you look at Lopatkina, if you’re a professional, you see: yes, she fell here, but how beautiful it was! I love intelligent ballerinas who rely on talent and the intelligence of their own bodies. Then there are other ballerinas who rely on sheer mastery. Marianela Núñez, for example, from the Royal Ballet—an infinitely smart ballerina. Her body is essentially unsuitable for ballet, but she’s so intelligent that everything is done with the brain. Diana Vishneva—another infinitely smart ballerina who wasn’t admitted to the Vaganova Academy; they simply told her: “Sweetie, you’re not suitable for this profession.” But she has the character—when she sees a goal, she doesn’t see obstacles. This too must be taught—how not to see obstacles. And, of course, children must believe in you because at first, they don’t succeed, and a ballet child is very much like the ugly duckling for a long time.

                                 Photo by Rebecca Kovalsky

L.G.: If it’s possible to make mistakes and still handle the situation beautifully, is expressiveness more important than precision for a ballerina or dancer?

N.T.: In classical ballet—both yes and no. Classical ballet is mathematics, geometry, physics, all combined. It’s based on lines, geometric proportions, and precision in execution. Even the most inspired ballerina understands that she must be mathematically precise. There is no compromise in ballet. First and foremost, you must be perfectly precise, but if you’re not inspired, you’re also of no use. (laughs) Robots are not valued in ballet.

L.G.: That’s wonderful, because today they are so valued in all other areas, including artificial intelligence, which is just frightening in its perfection… I wouldn’t want robots to come to ballet.

N.T.: I think they will inevitably come. It’s very convenient: imagine a troupe where you don’t have to hire people, depend on their mood, physical condition, or family troubles—you put 32 swans on stage, they perform, you turn them off and put them in a closet. A dream! And they will do exactly what’s needed, so there’s no human factor… But soloists should remain living people.

L.G.: So, we won’t replace soloists with robots?

N.T.: No, we won’t. (laughs)

P.S. After this conversation, I recalled a line from my favorite ballet film—or rather, a film about the dream of ballet, “Billy Elliot”: “Inside each of us is a special talent waiting to come out. The trick is to find that way out.”

Nadya finds it.

With the start of the new school year, it’s the perfect time to enroll in the Jerusalem Ballet School—but you must hurry! Nadya Timofeeva has even kindly provided our readers with the opportunity to contact her personally by mobile phone 054-636-3585.

All the photos provided by Nadya Timofeyeva and Jerusalem Ballet