1 February 1939 year
Born in Moscow Ekaterina Maximova — one of the most prominent and famous Soviet ballerinas. Granddaughter of a philosopher Gustav Shpet.
It doesn't matter where you dance, what matters is dancing
As a child, she was very active and eccentric, dreaming of becoming a conductor or a firefighter.
She developed an interest in ballet while still in school. At age 10, she entered the choreographic school, beating out 80 other applicants for a spot. At 14, she made her debut at the Bolshoi Theater, and at 20, she toured America and Canada, where she was nicknamed "the little elf" for her incredible airiness.
Educated in the best traditions of the academic school, she possessed a light, elastic jump, swift and precise rotation and natural grace.
Every performance is a flight
She was described as a ballerina ahead of her time in the aesthetics of dance. She imbued any simple and naive subject with spiritual content and a special romantic beauty. According to audiences, her dance was "purifying," "making everyone understand that not everything in life is ugly and bad, that there is hope that good things will come."
At 27, she performed one of the most challenging roles in the ballet "The Nutcracker," where her foot movements were precisely timed to the millisecond with the celesta—a musical instrument that sounds like bells. At that moment, the audience felt as if the diamond bells were ringing and shimmering precisely from the ballerina's movements.
After this, Maximova began to be called the diamond ballerina of the Soviet Union.
In the 1970s, she injured her spine twice. After a second injury, doctors said she was unlikely to return to dance. But just a year later, Maximova was once again performing complex roles, demonstrating amazing flexibility and refined movements.
After I was confined to a wheelchair, I danced for another twenty years. This injury changed a lot in my life, changed me personally. A new, previously unfamiliar feeling emerged within me: every second must be lived and there was no waiting!
She performed on stage for the last time in 1999, at the age of 60. She died in her sleep in April 2009 from heart failure.
