Surfacing
A trove of lush Soviet-era tutus can be found hidden in the back room of a small school near Chicago.
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“We have some of the best costumes. Come, look,” Tatyana Mazur says as she guides me to the back closet of the small dance studio she runs with her husband, Roman Mazur, in the corner of an unassuming strip-mall in Buffalo Grove, Ill.
Inside, I am met with an explosion of velvet, tulle and satin. The dozens of dresses, tutus and elaborate headpieces stored here comprise a rare collection of Soviet-era dance costumes, still in use more than 40 years after they were made.
12 years ago, when I was 14, I wore one of these costumes. The bodices, bejeweled with hundreds of hand sewn sequins stood in stark contrast to the minimalist costumes of modern ballet productions. The faux gemstones may have seemed large and gaudy up close, but onstage they subtly caught the stage lights, illuminating dancers as they moved. Every decorative element was exaggerated to be visible from the last row of any theater.
Many of the pieces in Tatyana’s collection are delicate and noticeably weak from years of wear. Decades of sweat stains have discolored the fabric lining and the once vibrant satin has faded to pastel. The velvet pulls at the seams, worn-out and frayed. Columns of sizing hooks leave a record of differently shaped Russian, Ukrainian and now American dancers.
As Tatyana’s student, I trained for hours with her each week while she taught me a solo variation from the classic Russian ballet, “Raymonda.” The preparation was rigorous, and my enthusiasm was waning. I had been studying ballet most of my life, and by my late teenage years I was no longer as dedicated as I once had been.
One afternoon, after a particularly grueling session, Tatyana brought out several piles of tutus for me to choose from. As I slipped into the layers of tulle and blue satin, my mood changed. The warped fitting hooks reminded me of the professional dancers who had pushed themselves to the limit in this tutu, spinning, jumping and extending as they performed for audiences thousands of miles away.
I looked at myself in the mirror, an otherwise average girl from downtown Chicago, now transformed into a countess. It was in that moment that I found the resolve to dance through my final ballet performance.
Tatyana, a former dancer turned instructor, met Roman 33 years ago, in Riga, Latvia, after both escaping Kiev during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. “It was a terrible situation in Ukraine and Russia,” Tatyana said. Eventually the couple returned to Kiev to help open a government-funded dance school, before leaving for the United States in 1997.
After several years in Ohio, they moved to Illinois and opened Mazur Dance. Roman continues to teach traditional folk dance classes to the sizable Russian community in the Chicago area and Tatyana gives private one-on-one sessions to ballet students.
When I asked Tatyana about the differences in the Russian and American approach to ballet, she explained that in Russia, ballerinas were as well-known as celebrities. “Ballet is very popular, it’s like treasure,” she said. “Here, who knows ballerinas?”
In an attempt to bring a more professional attitude to her American students, Tatyana began to look for quality costumes. After an unsuccessful search in the United States, she traveled back to Ukraine and Russia in 2001 where she bought old costumes from professional companies, including the National Ballet of Ukraine.
The costumes were already 20 to 30 years old at the time she bought them, meaning they were made and worn in the U.S.S.R. during the 1970s and ’80s, when companies would commission local designers and seamstresses to craft elaborate costumes for each production.
Talking about Tatyana’s costumes with Marc Happel, the Costume Director for New York City Ballet, he pointed out the “old-school Russian aesthetic toward decoration.” The bold coloring and opulent adornment stand in contrast to the polished costumes with which Mr. Happel typically works.
There are benefits to using costumes of such age, he said. Older costumes have fabric that’s been worn in, which can be appealing for dancers. “I’ve had dancers say to me ‘I feel like I’m putting on a pair of pajamas.’ It’s so supple and so worn out that it’s incredibly comfortable.” It can be a struggle to convince dancers to try a newly made costume: “it’s got that factory feel.”
But an affinity for older costumes can also come with sizing challenges. Mr. Happel cites the increase in female height and rib cage size since the 1940s as a key issue he and his team encounter when reusing old costumes. “Dancers are not the petite little things they once were, they’ve gotten much more athletic,” he said.
This fall, Tatyana will be training dancers from the Faubourg Theater Ballet Arts Academy, a small but notable school in Hanover Park, Ill., for an international competition. Each dancer will perform two to three ballet variations, requiring a different costume for each. I asked Michele Welsh, whose daughter Elisabeth is one of Tatyana’s students, if she notices a change in Elizabeth’s dancing when she practices with a tutu, “It makes all the difference,” she says, “she becomes the character.”
On the day I visit, Tatyana’s students are giddy with excitement. They gasp as she brings out each piece. “This one is my favorite!” says Julianne Pankau. Only to change her mind once Tatyana brings out another.
Though it had been more than a decade since I had danced with Tatyana, her students’ enthusiasm reminded me of the feeling that the “Raymonda” tutu gave me. I was proud to wear that blue dress — a privilege I had earned only after dedicating years to ballet.
I wondered if Tatyana’s current students also recognized how rare it was to be outfitted in costumes like these. One student, Michelle Zhang, put on a traditional folk dance costume. “I feel like one of those Russian dolls,” she said. “This looks exactly like one.”
Bianca Ladipo is a journalist and researcher living in New York City. She writes about the arts, government transitions, and political behavior.
Whitten Sabbatini is a photographer based in Memphis, Tenn.
Surfacing is a weekly column that explores the intersection of art and life, produced by Alicia DeSantis, Jolie Ruben and Josephine Sedgwick.
