..Zakharova is an incredibly divisive ballerina, as you’ve guessed, she’s in a long line of ballerinas of that ilk which all cropped up in the wake of Sylvie Guillem who is without doubt the most controversial ballerina of the past 25 years and who has pretty much set the template for what is expected of ballerinas in companies all over the world, now. There’s Alina Somova at the Kirov, Darcey Bussell was seen as being the British Guillem, Alicia Amaitrain at Stuttgart, the up and coming Melissa Hamilton at the Royal, indeed nowadays a ballerina isn’t seen as being a ballerina unless she can scratch her ear with her foot.

It used to be that a developpe shouldn’t raise the hip of the leg that was going up into the air, or contort the trunk of the body. Even extremely flexible ballerinas in classical companies would tone down the height they could lift a leg to in order to be correct in the placement of their body.

..all I said was the aesthetic of Guillem has become the modern template of ballerinas in the major companies all over the world. Guillem’s unique physiognomy indeed allowed her to appear undistorted with sky high extensions - attributes that Zakharova, Somova et al didn’t possess, their extensions distort every aspect of the body, and indeed compared to them Guillem now appears almost demure, and why there will probably never be another Guillem as her body really was a one off.

Source

Sylvie Guillem

image

Svetlana Zakharova

image

Alina Somova

image

This is one of the reasons why I could not warm up to Somova and to some extent, Zakharova. However, in the end ballet is subjective and what matters is what you feel about her dancing.