Konstantin zaklinsky biography books

In London in 1970 the 29-year-old prima ballerina Natalia Makarova, performing with Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet (now St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Ballet) defected to the West.

Then in the summer of 1988 at the packed 3,200-seat Business Design Centre in London Makarova danced again with her former company, even though her career was ending (she had announced her retirement in 1986).

She was 47.

Makarova had suffered many injuries, especially to her knees, and famously, in 1982, a piece of piping fell from the grid and hit her as the Slaughter on 10th Avenue ballet sequence began in On Your Toes.

She was offstage for two months with contusions of the head and a shoulder injury.

In 1998, the Sydney Morning Herald quoted her as saying,

I have many injuries. It is better not to talk about them.

Nevertheless, it was her trademark ballet, Swan Lake, that she wished to perform again with her