Velvet Recall: Dancing Days
Velvet Recall: Dancing Days

Summary/Abstract: A budding ballerina takes her first steps into adulthood amid the swarm of Prague’s protests. A TOL special report. On 17 November 1989, police in Prague cracked down on a student demonstration, triggering 10 days of mass protest and political action that peacefully brought down Czechoslovakia's communist regime. To mark the anniversary, all this week TOL features prominent Czechs offering their recollections of the Velvet Revolution. Today: Ballerina Adela Pollertova. For more memories of 1989, see the Recollections section of our 20 Years After website http://20years.tol.org/. * * * Prague-born Adela Pollertova hails from a distinguished artistic and athletic background. Her father and brother were world canoeing champions; her cousins include Lukas Pollert, who won an Olympic gold medal in the sport, and actress Klara Pollertova; her grandfather was the opera singer Emil Pollert. Adela bridged both worlds, competing with the Czechoslovak junior national gymnastics team before moving into ballet. In 1995 Pollertova joined the Hamburg Ballet, graduating to soloist after three years and winning the prestigious Dr. Wilhelm Oberdoerffer Prize for Young Artists in 1999. Five years ago she returned to Prague as a soloist at the National Theater and has played lead roles in Giselle, Onegin, Swan Lake, Goldilocks, La Sylphide, and Romeo and Juliet (for which she won a Thalia Award, the Czech Republic's most prestigious stage prize, in 2006). This month she dances Gretchen in Libor Vaculik’s Faust. In 1989, Pollertova was 13 and a student at the Dance Conservatory in Prague.

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