She has always been, indisputably, the true queen of Italian dance. She had been suffering from cancer, but faced the disease with great reserve. Italy’s most famous and celebrated ballet dancer, Carla Fracci, has died today at the age of 84. It is told that once Charlie Chaplin said to her, “You are wonderful” after seeing her dancing. Italy’s president Mattarella says “she has honoured our country with her elegance and her artistic commitment” She has always been the brightest Italian ballet star. On stage, I was both a dragonfly and a tiger, gentle and passionate, childish and combative.The Milan-born ballerina faced her fatal disease with great reserve. I increased my speed, ability, and line of legs. Nature gave me a slender body, gentle neck and arms, as well as a child-like smile with small and beautifully visible teeth. I was lucky to meet this world and be a part of it. Dance is the evolution of the body in all its beauty, integrity, and pride. To this day, while walking down the street, I am moved by the fact that people recognize me, stop me and thank me for everything that I have done.“ If we want the government to change, first of all, we need to bring culture to the most remote places, which everyone has forgotten about. I don’t feel like an icon or someone on a pedestal, but only a woman who worked hard and was born under a lucky star.“ Everything or almost everything has been said about me. I received a signed dedication from Mother Teresa of Calcutta, met Queen Elizabeth, and shook her hand, as well as Pope John Paul II, not to mention all the presidents. To make order and clear space, I throw away everything that does not mean anything to me, and then after a while I wonder where the hell those things ended up. I still use the alcohol-soaked notebook I used to soften my pointe shoes, which has Erik’s number in Toronto written down, as well as Rudy’s number in Guadalupe. In one suitcase, I keep the pointe shoes in which I performed at the Bolshoi, as well as one pair that Margot gave me, with an autograph that has since faded. It was filled with strong, multi-minute lasting ovations. She collaborated with choreographers such as John Cranko, Maurice Bejart, and Antony Tudor, and a significant role in her life had poets, including the famous Eugenio Montale, who dedicated many famous verses to her.ġ2th Belgrade Dance Festival with a speech in front of a full hall at the Sava Center. She also shared the stage with Margot Fonteyn, Gelsey Kirkland, Alicia Markova. With the praise of the most influential ballet critics and warm applause from the most diverse audience, Carla Fracci performed side by side with the world’s most famous dancers: Erik Bruhn, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mario Pistoni, Paolo Bortoluzzi. The daughter of the tram driver Luigi and worker Santina, a distant cousin of Giuseppe Verdi, Fracci talks about her love for her family and the honorable approach to dance that she tried to bring to the most distant places, about great artists, her friends, and contemporaries who left a lasting mark in the world of opera, ballet, film, music, politics. In her book, which she titled „Step by step“, Carla Fracci tells about her childhood spent in a Lombardy village, her graduation performance, and triumphant success on the most important world stages: in Milan, New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Havana, Tokyo, London. The autobiography of the famous Carla Fracci was published in Italy by the Mondadori house, while for the Serbian market this edition was realized by the Belgrade Dance Festival in collaboration with the Italian Institute for Culture, with the support of Banca Intesa and the Milan Scala Foundation. She performed over two hundred characters on the stage, bringing stories to life with incredible variety and from the depths of her soul, because „the language of dance is more penetrating than that of theatre, precisely because of the absence of the words“. these are just some of the roles she interpreted. Giselle, Juliet, Cinderella, Medea, Swanilda, Francesca da Rimini. The first collaboration between the Italian publisher Mondadori and the Belgrade Dance Festival Carla Fracci’s autobiography in Serbian, published by the Belgrade Dance Festival
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