Zizi Zhanmer Biography

Fragments from Zizi Zhanmer's book “Heritage of the Dance” Memories of the academic years with Rolan Petit ... The whole period of training was influenced by two strong personalities - Knyazev and Shovir. A less direct, more hidden, but equally significant role began to play in my life the third person - Rolan Petit. We were the same age, plus or minus six months. I found him attractive.

He radiated inner beauty, which distinguished him among others. He looked great, was a dreamer, funny and devilishly teasing, and he laughed a lot. Rolan never said nasty things behind a person, preferred to say everything he thinks in the face. I was not particularly interested in him. He just went about his business, was fooling around. At that time, we still had no leaders, and if we were not in the classroom, we were left to ourselves.

All classes were held together. In December, Roland and I were simultaneously enrolled in the corps de ballet. I watched how it grows, blooms and at the age of 16 it becomes a great seducer. Smart and gifted with a rich imagination, Rolan was already a poet and a magnificent dancer. It will become one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th century. One of a kind, he will invent his own unique language.

Very harmonious, with long, magnificent legs, he possessed a pale face complexion, brown curls and unusually expressive eyes. Inquisitive in everything, he loved jazz and songs, took acting lessons and went for the curtains of the most famous shows and to theaters, and often visited actors. Like me, he received solid training in a wonderful school. In the first year of what he called the “strange war” to the occupation, although we lived in isolation from the rest of the world, he managed to select new American songs and find reviews of Hollywood films.

He already talked a lot with the celebrities of Paris. He was very Zazou. According to the dictionary, this term denoted young people who were passionately interested in American jazz at the beginning of World War II. This is about him. He was always dressed in the highest category and combed his hair in accordance with the style of that time: his hairstyle resembled a cock of the Cockerel.

His mother told me that, being a teenager, in Cannes Rolan went to the beach in golf trousers, a shirt, a cap and gloves of the color of fresh oil, with a dark blue cashmere blanket with white patterns, with a “codak” over his shoulder and, of course, never walked barefoot because he hated sand. This Zazou-period was crazy: the girls wore heels-platforms, huge hats with whistles on their heads, and in the summer they put on dresses with a pronounced waist, from under which lace hemers peeked out.

The occupation had to repel any desire to be eccentric. A student of Madame Ruzanne, he sometimes came to classes to Boris Knyazev and saw that I was doing success. It takes shape into the future. He began to look at me with interest, but he still did not like my hairstyle and tunics. The more I thought about dancing, the more Rolan occupied my mind and heart in my mind. I looked at him with the desire to please.

His strong personality fascinated me. Roland's parents lived separately. His mother, Rosa Repeto, which we called the Granny of Rose, was a wonderful woman. It was Rolan at the age of 12 years old who convinced her to leave her husband in order to free herself from daily hell. Christian Berar said to Rolan: “With a name as Repetto, why don't she make ballet shoes?

It was there, on the sixth floor, that she began to make shoes. First, with one master, then there were two of them, then three, one after another - and the company was on Mira Street, 22 and became a world -famous brand. Rose, a man with a warm heart, knew how to accept customers. She followed everything, was accurate, attentive and understood the importance of the smallest details.

She was funny and sweet, but at the same time a strong woman with a firm hand. During the occupation, the rose became an involuntary participant in the resistance. More than anything, she loved her son. It was a surprise for our family and close friends, and for the entire dance world: there were so many quarrels between us that everyone thought it was not for long.

I must say that in Hollywood and the stars of the ballet troupe, and everyone who has been next to Roland for the last two years felt very well without me. When I arrived, they could only say: “She returned! My mother also did not think that this union would last long. Rose Retto, who became my mother -in -law, saw a demon in her son, who was primarily a lover of freedom.

Edmon Petit did not have his own opinion. I remember that winter day, as if it were yesterday: Rolan and I in the Ice Church of Saint-sir-la-Riviere were moved when we put the rings onto each other's finger. Madame Ruzanne in his silver fox fur coat, with a wide smile and wet eyes - she was the first witness to Rolan, because she took care of him since childhood. Madame believed that he acted correctly, marrying Zizi, which she liked.

Jean-Pierre Gred, a great friend of Roland and his second Schafer, was also delighted with our marriage.The show that lit a wick year and again I felt that I was walking in a circle. In order to stop stomping in place, I needed a challenge: Rolan had to give me an important role in a major creation of what I had been waiting for so long, happened on my twenty -fourth birthday. During the season, Rolan signed two contracts at Marigny: one in Germany, the other in England, where he had just taken upon himself the obligation to create a new ballet.

During a tour in Germany, in a bus that drove us to Baden-Baden, I heard several dancers said that for London Roland is preparing a ballet inspired by the opera Carmen Bizet based on Merim’s novel. It occurred to me - I will be his Carmen! Once in Baden-Baden, an old-fashioned resort town with a charming baroque decor, I managed to spend some time alone with Roland, and I asked him who would dance in a new ballet.

He replied: "I don't know yet." I felt ready, decisive. I took his hands into my own, squeezed them tightly and, looking straight into my eyes, said: “Carmen is me! Everything went very quickly: Rolan was surprisingly inspired, in a state of grace! But the more ideas he has, the more often I ask him how to perform them, and the more difficult the choreography becomes. I want to do it so well that I begin a kind of battle with myself.

I work on my variations fragmentary, as we always do, but since I want to bring choreography to the maximum degree of perfection, I do not have time to connect them together - from beginning to end. Later I found out that Rolan said Margo Fontaine: “I think Carmen will be one of my most beautiful ballets, but I chose the wrong dancer.” Roland is very demanding, but he knows how to direct his dancers to what is most suitable for them, and to force them to develop individual equipment, at the same time imposing their choreographic notation and style.

He made me at an early age understand what my possibilities and restrictions are. You need to have a clear head in order to be able to correct your shortcomings and give a maximum. I was torn at the same time feelings of delight, fatigue and fear of not copeing with the role that I so desperately wanted, nevertheless I was ready for it. You dance more, it turns out better. We simultaneously prepared Carmen and the performance, which was shown every evening.

Despite the intense daily work and the strange rhythm of our nomadic life, we have not lost enthusiasm. In the year, Germany was rebuilt again. We slept in dilapidated hotels, the cities were so bombed that the construction sites worked day and night. The first to restore churches and theaters. By the end of our tour, which were held with great success, the new ballet was ready.

As soon as we returned to Paris, Rolan finalized the production and took up the latest preparations, in particular, by the adjustment of costumes sewn by Irene Karinskaya according to the sketches of Anthony Klava. I felt that for Rolan the bets were high for me too. At the end of one of the last rehearsals, he carefully looked at my face and said: “I'm going to make you a short haircut, I need an Androgyn Carmen.” I agreed immediately, without reservation, happy that he finally took care of me completely.

I have been waiting for this year. Roland took me to Antoine, leading a hairdresser of that time, who made me my new hairstyle. A new face appeared in the mirror. I left Antoine with short hair. From that day I have never changed my hairstyle. The desire to go on stage is an indescribable impulse, which I cannot resist, but before raising the curtain I am scared, I am in a panic. My thoughts are in a mess.

And what can we say about the exciting state that I experience from the roar of the filled hall, the illegible noise of the conversations of the audience and dancers, who, like me, are heated and rehearsed until the very last moment! Not to mention the intimate presence of Rolan that I feel without even seeing him. Immersed into a state of extreme exaltation, I want only one thing - to hear three blows and see how the curtain rises.

In the evening of the premiere, I had a hard time. The hall was crowded. I was like a gaping horse before the start.