Marija Rakic invites Bahrain This Month’s Farrah Saville to her studio to talk ballet, Bahrain and building her dream on the island. She opens up about representing Bahrain in Paris as part of a dance delegation at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. It’s a cold winter’s day in Bahrain - windy and icy. Marija Rakic talks to us from her ballet studio in Seef which overlooks the RitzCarlton, Bahrain. “I started dancing when I was eight years old at the National Ballet School ‘Lujo Davico’ in Serbia. My parents took me there one rainy day and I had an audition in front of a jury of 15 people and luckily, I was accepted, meaning I have been dancing for 24 years!” “There was the war in Serbia in 1999, so I had to stop dancing for six months as schools were not open. As the war ended, I was pushed by my teacher to start doing ballet classes with a generation two years older than me, so I could progress faster. That is why I graduated high school two years before my own generation,” she explains. Marija’s dance career includes a history of dancing at the top ballet schools in the world. At the tender age of 16 Marija was accepted to a ballet academy in Salzburg, Austria. Just a year later she received an official invitation to study at a ballet academy in Madrid, Spain followed by an acceptance to Perm State Ballet School in Russia. “I graduated as one of the top students and immediately after began receiving offers for job opportunities in Russian theatres. My professional career started at a theatre in Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, Russia. After two and a half years there, I received an offer to work in Moscow and started touring with The Moscow Ballet Company around Europe. We danced in main theaters in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, such as Teatro Real (Madrid), Teatro de Liceu (Barcelona) and Teatro Elfo Puccini (Milan),” she reminisces. Adding to her illustrious career, she accepted a job offer with ‘Ballet La Classique’ Elik Melikov and performed on stage of RAMT and the historic Bolshoi Theatre just a year later. “By 2014 I was working between two theatres: Teatrul de Sibiu in Romania and The Moscow Ballet Company,” she states. An injury forced her to stop her professional dancing career in 2016, and so she joined a ballet school in Qatar. After nearly five years in Qatar, she accepted an offer in the Kingdom of Bahrain where she is currently a ballet teacher. Her experience, passion and talent led her to represent Bahrain in France at the International Dance Council of UNESCO. She laughs: “I received a phone call from an unknown number and did not want to answer, but after a few missed calls, I picked up. It was Bahrain’s Ballerina PEOPLE | interview February 2023 www.womanthismonth.com 64
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