Ruvim Kondratyev

Erie, Colorado

Category: Article

  • We all have wings! (magazine article 2025)

    We all have wings! (magazine article 2025)

    Danse Etoile (DE) is the ballet school where I dance at. I originally wrote this article here for the DE magazine that Marie-Jose published in June 2025 for the dancer families, but I hope it’s a useful reading for others who are on the web here as well.

    Photos are of the ballet Frida’s Wings where I danced the role of Diego Rivera. The ballet featured Frida Kahlo and her “wings”.

    What mechanism motivates us to keep going in life when we face difficulty? The ballet Frida’s Wings demonstrated what kept Frida going: her wings! Despite a bus wreck that crumbled her life, she found the power in her wings to overcome the difficulties. While the ballet portrayed Frida, this ballet was actually about us. We all have different kinds of wings in our life, and, if we examine the ballet as well as our life closely, we will be empowered to have true success.

    Wings (danced by Kathryn Maciolek) was the main character of the ballet. Wings was Frida’s strong spirit that drove her to create all the art that she had created. In fact, we all have this type of “wings” in our lives to allow us to create. God gave this gift of artistry to humanity from the very beginning when He placed the first humans into a garden for them to create beautiful landscapes from it. Further, as John Keating put it, medicine, business, engineering, etc., are all necessary for us humans to stay alive, but art is “what we stay alive for”. Art gives us purpose. Art makes us human. In this way, because art is intrinsic to all humanity, we therefore can be sure that if Frida had wings, then we can have wings too!

    But beware of counterfeit wings. For Frida (danced by Rika Hancock), Diego was the counterfeit wings not because his professional opinion was wrong but because he ended up mistreating Frida. He didn’t really love her. According to Frida’s biography by Hayden Herrera, Frida initially went to Diego to consult him – as he was a professional painter – about the profitability of her art to see if she should keep painting or if it’s not worth it. She needed to make a living. His honest opinion empowered her to keep painting, but the problem was that he married and later mistreated her. It was good that she consulted a professional artist, but marrying him was the wrong decision. For me, Diego was a difficult role to dance because I really care about everyone I dance with and hate to mistreat anyone. It was emotionally painful to dance the fight scene with Frida. Despite the challenge, Diego was an important role to showcase Frida’s art and to further showcase her wings.

    As for our lives, we can have those counterfeit wings too. Social media is one example. It can help us achieve popularity to sell artwork to more people or to expand our business or to influence more people in positive ways. However, just like with Frida’s case of good wings that had become counterfeit because she married the wrong person, it is important to use social media wisely and not “marry” it – that is, not be addicted to it, not overshare our life to the world, and to do our best to not rely on the number of “likes” we have. Furthermore, social media is overly stimulating to our brain, and excessive use has been linked to a variety of mental health problems. If misused, this “wings” of social media can become counterfeit and work against us. Why do we need counterfeit wings when we have the real wings within us?

    Picture credit: Dominique Payannet, 2024. The ballet: Frida’s Wings.

  • Danse Etoile is important to me (magazine article 2024)

    Danse Etoile is important to me (magazine article 2024)

    Danse Etoile (DE) is the ballet school where I dance at. I originally wrote this article here for the DE magazine that Marie-Jose published in June 2024 for the dancer families, but I hope it’s a useful reading for others who are on the web here as well.

    Photos are of the Little Mermaid ballet where I danced the role of the Prince.

    Danse Etoile (DE) is very special to me because I know that it is not about me: it is about us. There is so much other work that I can spend my time on throughout the week, and I spend my time on engineering and other tasks when I’m not at the studio. However, there is absolutely nothing that I can do that is as important as the people whom I am with. DE involves people in three ways: first, by the influence that everyone has on everyone else; second, by the audience satisfaction that arises from this; and third, by the collective strength that we have when we’re together.

    In any group scenario, such as a dance studio, the people have an influence on each other, whether that influence be good or bad. I am a person of faith, and I believe that God placed me into this world to love and to positively influence other people as well as to learn from other people. I believe this to be my purpose in life. With that in mind, DE allows me to live out my life purpose not only by doing whatever I can to make other dancers happy when I’m in class but also by dancing the best I can to make the audience happy when I’m on stage. Likewise, everyone in class influences me in positive ways as well, and this makes DE a very special place.

    Secondly, audience satisfaction at DE is really important. If one watches a DE performance, there is no doubt about the arduous work that went into the show. But it’s not even about appreciating the arduous work: it’s about the dancers giving the audience a gift, a performance, a good time. It’s about us doing our best job for ourselves and for the audience. My first time watching a DE performance was the Wizard of Oz, and I was blown away by the performance. Not only did all the dancers do an excellent job, but also they were all deeply situated in their roles, filled with emotion, and they made the story feel very real to me. It felt as though I was right there in the scene with them. I felt very happy. They gave me a good time. This experience influenced me in such a way that I wanted to work hard and to be a part of these performances.

    Finally, dancing together at DE, we are collectively stronger than if we were each alone doing our own separate tasks. When we do the plank and other challenging exercises in class, it’s tough, but we’re all in it together, and that makes us achieve more. Studying with Marie-Jose in class every day, I’ve improved so much. And aside from just improving, all of us are simply much happier when we all work together. Working with these people, I want all of them to succeed, and everyone wants me to succeed, and that makes us a strong company where we can feel like we belong. I am very blessed to be dancing with this wonderful group of people.

    Picture credit: Dominique Payannet, 2024. “Sailors” scene in the ballet: Little Mermaid.

    Note on history: just as I joined the ballet school, DE performed the Wizard of Oz show in January 2023, which I was not a part of because I had just joined. I was in the audience for that show.