As I wrote in yesterday's post, Miko was featured in the documentary First Position, and she was only twelve during filming. Something she says in her introduction really struck me the first time I heard it, and it still does; she says, "There's people that say I've missed out on childhood. I think I've just had the right amount of childhood and the right amount of ballet. So far." I find that to be a pretty deep statement from such a little girl. For me, this indicates a certain wisdom and maturity-beyond-her-years, especially since she already knows ballet is her calling. Of course, children often change their ideas about what they want to be (I rotated through a number of career options when I was her age!), but there's something different with Miko. Ballet requires a commitment almost from infancy, and she has clearly already made that choice to continue and train hard. Not all twelve-year-olds are ready for that choice, but Miko's talent and obvious passion make it a logical one.
In these next two videos, Miko performs Kitri's variation from the ballet Don Quixote, once at age twelve and the other at age thirteen. I've chosen these two because you can clearly see how she progresses from one year to the next.
What differences do you see? I notice that her right leg is much more flexible in the second video and that she has better control over her long arms. A more subtle point is at the point (pun intended) in the dance where she begins to execute a sequence of turns from what is known as fifth position. In the first video, her right foot never really closes into fifth position from passe to prepare for the next turn, which is a technical correction. She fixes this when she performs this variation again, and I immediately noticed how her foot closed nicely into fifth with her heel down (not touching one's heel to the ground puts a greater amount of stress on the body, since there is no "cushion" to protect the dancer's muscles and ligaments from the shock with the ground; by doing this, she avoids an injury that could alter her career). Perhaps the biggest difference from twelve to thirteen? A gold medal instead of a bronze one, a result of her further development as a dancer.
Miko is even better again at sixteen at Moscow's International Ballet Competition (IBC). Here she performs a variation from Paquita.
Note how her lines and positions are much smoother in this performance. I would credit that to the fact that she's a young girl only just growing into her body. She has greater control over all her limbs, and the result is exquisite. I chose this performance because it shows her control over her movements in a slow variation, unlike the fast-paced Kitri variation above. It takes just as much skill if not more to perform a slow variation well: every single mistake shows because the audience (and judges) has time to notice all the minute imperfections. Hats off to Miko; she did a fantastic job and earned herself a gold medal.
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