Ana Botafogo: "the classical ballerina in the land of football"

"The classical ballerina in the land of football." That's how Ana Botafogo defined herself on the opening day of the... Itaú Cultural Occupation Dedicated to her career. The phrase perfectly summarizes the magnitude that the ballerina achieved over decades. She transcended the limits of the stage of the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro (TMRJ) and became a national reference.

The 72nd edition of the program Itaú Cultural Occupation The exhibition traces this journey through photographs, documents, posters, testimonials, and personal objects. On display until June 21st, the show presents the ballerina's life from childhood to her consolidation as Prima Ballerina of the TMRJ (Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro), a position she assumed in 1981 after beginning her career in France.

If you ask anyone to name a famous ballerina, it's very likely that the answer will be Ana Botafogo. She credits this popularity to several factors: "I danced a lot throughout Brazil, north, south, east, west, and people started to get to know me at a time when there was no internet," she explains.

After that, she says she left the "classical ballerina's little box," getting even closer to the public by dancing to Brazilian popular music and participating in television programs. With a broad smile and charm, she was a recurring presence on Sunday nights as a judge on the show. Famous dance, from TV Globo. She also participated in the soap opera Life pages (2006), by Manoel Carlos, in addition to giving lectures and performing shows created especially for her.

Ana Botafogo began learning her first ballet steps at the age of six. She has few memories of that time, although she still remembers the performances she gave. It was a little later, around the age of eleven, when she entered the Leda Iuqui Ballet Academy, that the practice became more rigorous, being evaluated through exams. 

The discipline she acquired during that period, she says, stayed with her throughout her life. To continue dancing, she needed to do well in school. So she paid close attention in class so that she would have time left for rehearsals and the routine required by ballet. Otherwise, she would have to give up her ballet shoes.

At age 13, she began to consider the possibility of becoming a professional ballerina. A dream that seemed distant, due to the few auditions for the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro, her main reference for pursuing a career in classical dance.

Since he hadn't yet had the opportunity to audition after finishing high school, he enrolled in a Literature course at university. After a semester, he suspended his studies and went to spend a few months with his uncle, who lived in Paris. This offered him the chance to study French and, of course, ballet. Very quickly, about two months after arriving, he passed an audition for the French choreographer and dancer Rolland Petit at the Ballet National de Marseille. Thus began his professional journey in dance.  

You don't need to have taken ballet classes to know the reputation for strictness among teachers and choreographers, something that's ingrained in our collective imagination, most likely due to what's been portrayed in movies. For Ana, this logic is changing. "We see that it didn't need to be the way it used to be. Because many people gave up dancing because they couldn't handle the pressure from certain teachers."

Now also a teacher, she believes it's possible to maintain technical rigor without turning the learning environment into a hostile one. "It's possible to have discipline and rigor within the learning of classical technique, but in a pleasant way that increasingly encourages the student to progress."

Regarding competition within the dance world, the ballerina also adopts a conciliatory tone. “It is a competitive career, yes, but it doesn’t have to be competitive in an ugly way or in a way that excludes others. It can be competitive to the point that if someone else is doing well, I want to do as well as them or better.”

Ana joined the Theatro Municipal in 1981, where she became a principal dancer, after returning to Brazil and spending a season in Curitiba with the Guaíra Ballet. Throughout her 45 years at the Rio de Janeiro theater, Ana witnessed changes within the Brazilian dance scene itself. For her, the expansion of the audience also brought new artistic demands. "The public also demands better productions, and we've been discovering new choreographers, because that's necessary," she states. According to the dancer, the country was producing great performers, but still needed to invest in training creators capable of producing works that would transcend generations.

Even today, Ana does “at least one barre” daily. “The barre in classical ballet prepares dancers a lot, but it also prepares someone who has lived their whole life through dance and exercise. It prepares me for my day,” she says. “Normally, I like to do a barre even if I'm going to give an interview, because that barre warms me up for the day. It warms up my voice, it warms up my whole body.”

Not surprisingly, the barre is such a prominent element in the exhibition. It encircles the exhibition room and serves as a support for various photographs of the ballerina scattered throughout the space. On one of the walls, the classic ballet studio is recreated, with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and a barre running across the space. Visitors can even follow and reproduce the movements of a class led by Ana Botafogo, reflected in the mirror before them.

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The process of creating the exhibition organized the ballerina's trajectory and brought to light memories that had been stored away. According to Ana, researchers Eliza Oliver and Regina Medeiros spent up to seven hours a day at her home examining photographs, documents, and objects accumulated over decades.

“I love reminiscing. I don’t have that thing about nostalgia or sadness, but I think this was part of my history and I’m happy now,” she says. “These boxes were closed for 10, 20 years. I wouldn’t have time to see this now, but this exhibition gave me the opportunity to talk and remember a little bit of my history.”

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