- Title: CZECH REPUBLIC/FILE: Pensioners ballet company performs Swan Lake
- Date: 19th April 2011
- Summary: HORNI LHOTA, CZECH REPUBLIC (RECENT) (REUTERS) PEOPLE GETTING OFF BUS ON VILLAGE CENTRAL STREET MEMBERS OF "MAZORETKI" DANCE GROUP AT VILLAGE PUB MAZORETKI MEMBER DRINKING BEER ANOTHER MAZORETKI MEMBER TALKING TO OTHERS BEER GLASS (SOUNDBITE) (Czech) HANA HAVELKOVA, LEADER OF MAZORETKI DANCE GROUP, SAYING: "We have to rehearse the programme all the time because, unfortunately the age aspect is here and something gets forgotten and therefore we have to practice. Otherwise we are performing mostly with the old program, what we have chosen once and what is wanted. Of course Cancan, swans are the most popular parts, Kalinka is also very popular, that is what people ask for."
- Embargoed: 4th May 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Czech Republic, Czech Republic
- Country: Czech Republic
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA2H7S3X2HXXJCA0JVK8FXD7EVF
- Story Text: Tchaikovsky's 'Pas de Quatre for the small swans' floods the sunlit studio in Horni Lhota - a small town some 330km outside the Czech capital. The swans themselves may not be so young anymore but the dancing pensioner troupe bring enough flourish and feathers to their Swan Lake interpretation to prove that you are never too old to dance.
The Cheerleaders from Horni Lhote - Mazoretki, in Czech - first got together at a pensioner's club in 2001 and gave their debut performance at a local Christmas party.
But like many of today's success stories, fame did not come overnight. For three years the Mazoretki gigged and danced at small venues, rehearsing mainly in day-care centres for the elderly. Then there was the pressure of such frequent rehearsals, and eleven strong women with eleven equally strong opinions. But then they were spotted.
And the rest as they say - is history. The pirouetting pensioners were picked up by the Czech media, had a TV show made about them and can now perform to a full house.
Dancing the ballet may have given the group wings, but, says the Mazoretki's leader, they do have to have extra rehearsals as their memories just aren't what they used to be.
"We have to rehearse the programme all the time because, unfortunately the age aspect is here and something gets forgotten and therefore we have to practice," Hana Havelkova said.
The troupe's programme covers Swan Lake, Camille Saint-Saens' mournful dance of the swan, Kalinka and a dose of the high-kicking Cancan.
Not only do the audience get a good show, the pensioners get a lift out of the humdrum of retirement.
"It immensely enriches our live as pensioners. We travel, perform, visit cultural houses, theatres. We have to be well dressed, in a good mood, we can't just sit at home in tracksuits. So let's get nicely dressed, put some nice make-up on, hair do!" Havelkova told Reuters.
It is impossible not to smile as the group struts onto the stage, every bit the preening swans. But they are not there to make clowns out of themselves, says Havelkova.
"The beginning was tricky as we didn't want to go on stage and make ourselves into clowns. But it massively liberated us, I would say, from daily worries. There is enough of that at home for all of us. So we are going to stick with this for as many years as we can. As long as our knees and gallbladders, and the rest go on working!"
And the eleven women are still together. They still disagree form time to time but they always resolve it, usually by laughing at themselves and with each other.
One of the founders Alenka Freyova passed away at the age of 73. The group found this hard to take but say that death is a part of life and along with the laughing and the dancing they often lay flowers at her grave to say thank you for setting the Mazoretki's in motion. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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