Everything was against Marie-Agnes Gillot becoming a ballerina – never mind a great one.
She was too tall, broad-shouldered and, most of all, she had a double scoliosis, which sometimes gives her a hump when her back is swollen.
Yet the hump disappears as if by magic when Gillot takes to the stage.
"I have a limited time to stay standing, carried by my muscles and myself," the star says. She accepts "that with time passing I'll be going back into my corset, unless I accept the operation, the metal rod in my back".
On Saturday night Gillot closed an extraordinary chapter in modern French ballet when she took her final bow at the Paris Opera Ballet in Orpheus and Eurydice.
The last great French ballerina of her generation, she hid her problem from her teachers after leaving home at nine to go to ballet’s elite school in the French capital.
“When I arrived I thought, ‘who are these nasty skinny ladies?’” she remembers.
Not wanting to be thought of as handicapped, only her roommates knew her secret.
“Nobody gave me a free pass,” the dancer says of her long rise to the top. In fact, it was the opposite.
She did not make principal dancer until relatively late – she was 28 – by which time even the great choreographer Maurice Bejart had become exasperated, declaring, “she was the best they have, and finally they decided”.
Unlike her predecessor, the legendary Sylvie Guillem, whose passage she said was eased by Rudolf Nureyev, she had no such powerful mentor.
When Gillot was eventually named as a prima ballerina she made history as the first to be promoted in Paris for a modern piece.
“I think we have a hard time managing exceptional people in France who have a lot of energy, who have strong minds, who have abnormal abilities. And not just in ballet,” she says of her struggles.
Gillot was in no doubt that it was because she was “too talented that they would not accept any mistakes from me. They were super tough with me but with the middling types they said, ‘Don’t worry, we will let you through’.
“People before me who fell [during their final test] and people after too went on to be principal dancers while I could not make the smallest error.”
Only when she “ran away to New York” at 18 was she freed from “sweeping the floor” and given the roles she felt she deserved, she says.
“I’ve been described with adjectives like athletic, tall, atypical, rebel and punk since I was very little. But I don’t see it,” she says with a laugh.
“I see myself as a good soldier with a lot of discipline who has embraced all types of dance and never given classical or contemporary priority.”
Gillot, 42, has been branching out into film, fashion – working with Chanel, Hermes and Repetto – and art in recent years, even saving her sweat in little jars for a project. She also has a collection of poems in the pipeline.
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But as the only female French choreographer to have her work staged at the Paris Opera, dance still fires her. She is passionate about righting wrongs in dance education, saying that some elite schools stifle young dancers’ creativity.
“I would develop children’s curiosity by bringing them to the theatre to see great actors ... or even to fashion shows where they’ve made clothes out of bin bags so that they have creativity in them instead of just commands and orders all the time,” she says.
"We cannot break 10,000 children for one little prodigy. We have to cherish their imagination and not rein it in," she once told Paris Match magazine of ballet's failings.
Critics’ gripes about the lack of great charismatic dancers may be because of the way dancers are drilled. “You can be a great dancer but without personality,” she says. With her warm, throaty laugh, personality is not something Gillot lacks.
Having spent the past three months tearfully grieving her exit from an institution where she has spent most of her life, “now I just want to get on with it”, she laughed.
Still, there are memories that will remain with her forever, the greatest of which was “dancing with my son in my tummy at seven months. I would lift up my leg and he would get in the way”.
“But it is amazing what the body can do.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
Company%20Profile
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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Business Insights
- Canada and Mexico are significant energy suppliers to the US, providing the majority of oil and natural gas imports
- The introduction of tariffs could hinder the US's clean energy initiatives by raising input costs for materials like nickel
- US domestic suppliers might benefit from higher prices, but overall oil consumption is expected to decrease due to elevated costs
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Famous left-handers
- Marie Curie
- Jimi Hendrix
- Leonardo Di Vinci
- David Bowie
- Paul McCartney
- Albert Einstein
- Jack the Ripper
- Barack Obama
- Helen Keller
- Joan of Arc
Essentials
The flights
Etihad and Emirates fly direct from the UAE to Delhi from about Dh950 return including taxes.
The hotels
Double rooms at Tijara Fort-Palace cost from 6,670 rupees (Dh377), including breakfast.
Doubles at Fort Bishangarh cost from 29,030 rupees (Dh1,641), including breakfast. Doubles at Narendra Bhawan cost from 15,360 rupees (Dh869). Doubles at Chanoud Garh cost from 19,840 rupees (Dh1,122), full board. Doubles at Fort Begu cost from 10,000 rupees (Dh565), including breakfast.
The tours
Amar Grover travelled with Wild Frontiers. A tailor-made, nine-day itinerary via New Delhi, with one night in Tijara and two nights in each of the remaining properties, including car/driver, costs from £1,445 (Dh6,968) per person.
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JOKE'S%20ON%20YOU
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Need to know
Unlike other mobile wallets and payment apps, a unique feature of eWallet is that there is no need to have a bank account, credit or debit card to do digital payments.
Customers only need a valid Emirates ID and a working UAE mobile number to register for eWallet account.
Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
The biog
From: Upper Egypt
Age: 78
Family: a daughter in Egypt; a son in Dubai and his wife, Nabila
Favourite Abu Dhabi activity: walking near to Emirates Palace
Favourite building in Abu Dhabi: Emirates Palace
Padmaavat
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh
3.5/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Getting there
Flydubai flies direct from Dubai to Tbilisi from Dh1,025 return including taxes
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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