For the autumn/fall issue of Fashionisto, Roberto Bolle has been photographed by Brent Chua for a fashion shoot wearing Prada, Armani, and Dolce & Gabbana.
Bolle is a Principal with the American Ballet Theatre and an Étoile at La Scala. While slipping out of his Prada jacket and pulling on his Armani trousers, he talked about the differences:
In America, it's different because there are dancers who come here from all over the world, Cuba, Russia, and from Italy… it's really an international company with the best dancers in the world. In Italy, it's very different. Dancers go to school in Milan and they want to join the company where most of the dancers are Italian. It's a good company but it's not comparable.
I wonder how soon it is before the La Scala management read that!
David Hallberg is famously enamoured with fashion, but no ballet dancer has done as many fashion spreads as Roberto Bolle.
It's quite normal to become involved in fashion when you live in Milan. I remember, at 20, I received invitations to see the fashion shows in Milan. I became a friend of Stefano Gabbana, Donatella Versace, Giorgio Armani and all the major designers.
Ballet is hard #1:
Dancing is hard work but at the end of the day it's an expression of emotion. It's the most beautiful thing for a dancer to express the emotion of their character. You feel the emotion and you give it to the public.
Ballet is hard #2:
Ballet life is very difficult and demanding. You have to possess a lot of qualities. Nowadays a ballet dancer has to have a perfect body, great face, movement and the passion to dance.
Certain famous dancers of the (recent) past wouldn't have even begun their careers had these rules been in place then! Bolle meanwhile will grace the cover of another few magazines in the build-up to his Roberto Bolle and Friends in New York on 17 September.
Roberto Bolle and Friends is at the New York City Center on 17 September 2013.
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
I`m a little shocked by his last declaration (“Ballet is hard #2”)…
Not everyone is blessed at birth with the body of a Greek statue and a beautiful face like him. That doesn`t mean they will not be dancers. How narrow minded to declare such things. There are everywhere in the world ballet dancers who are not going to walk the runways and befriend all the top designers but as soon as they start dancing people forget their imperfections.
Sincerely, I`m really disturbed with this quote.
Maybe he should stop giving interviews if he`s going to make this kind of statements. Stick to dancing Roberto Please!!!
Agree!
As regard to his statement titled “Ballet is hard”.
What can I say? He’s an excellent dancer but modesty doesn’t seem to be his best feature. This is not the first interview where you can see certain amount of vanity in his words.
I can understand that an artist needs to have a strong ego to perform on stage. Otherwise, exposing yourself in front of the public would be an extremely difficult task. But I think that Roberto’s ego is becoming too strong lately.
Think Roberto Bolle should keep hs narrow-minded, vain comments to himself!
(Not sure about the Marcia Haydee comment – think she was a beautiful ballerina)
Marcia Haydée was indeed a beautiful ballerina, one of my favourites. But if today’s requirements are these she wouldn’t get off the starting blocks: her face wasn’t made for magazine covers, her body wasn’t perfect for dance either, but when she moved the magic happened… that’s dancing!
According to Roberto Bolle:ugly people can’t dance,The Scala is a provincial company and if you are born in Milan you already have one foot in the fashion industry….
Yes!! What a shame…
His comment about physical beauty in ballet hurt because there is truth to it; it might even be completely true. All of you know this. At least most of the men in ballet I’ve heard of who are star dancers have great-looking faces of some kind to go along with a fit body and dancing talent.
No wonder, except for a small number of ballet fanatics, the general public are not interested in male ballet dancers.
La Scala Corps de Ballet not comparable with American Ballet Company?
BAH
He is a traitor, a false person… When he comes in Italy (on Magazines, of course) he said that the world is totally envious about La Scala… etc…
What the director would say if he readed this words…
Well he is not a very clever dancer, The history needs intelligent dancers. Beauty is a gift, but dancing is an art. Not just how you look, but what you do and why. Male ballet dancer can’t be represented by a guy like him. Other male ballet dancer make a great job and we deserve to know a real artist in ballet. At the moment, I know some female ballet dancer are smarter and more profound, for example, Olga Smirnova.