For a fine ballet teacher, Madame Cheremeteff's one tough lady
By Susan Pedwell
A pale thin woman steps forward. She's 60 years old. Clenched in her fist is a crowbar.
She walks towards a wall and strikes it with the crowbar. A few chips of plaster fall to the door. Five days later, she has demolished the walL That was eight years ago, but still nothing stands in the way of Madame Regina Cheremeteff. If there's a wall she feels shouldn't be there it goes. If there's a floor that needs redoing, she's the one who get down on her hands and knees and yank it up nail by nail. No, Cheremeteff is not a construction worker. She's a ballet teacher.
And one tough lady. She's the head of the Calgary Russian Ballet Academy and a woman whose life has been disrupted by two world wars and poverty. When her face is in repose you can see all the sorrow she has accumulated since the carefree days when she skipped off to class at the local ballet school. The sorrow is clearly etched into the deep creases that mark her face. But there's still a twinkle in Cheremeteff's eye that no amount of misfortune could ever dim. "What can you do but pick yourself up and keep on going?" she asks.
When her husband died. Madame Cheremeteff. then 31, came to realize that she couldn't stay in the country where they had lived. Too many happy memories.
Twelve years later, she immigrated to Canada. At first she chose to settle in Regina because Regina is Cheremeteff's first name. “I thought it would be meant for me," she said.
But it wasn't. After a few months. Cheremeteff moved to Calgary because Regina was "just too […].” That was in 1956, the same year she opened the Calgary Russian Ballet SchooL 'I don't think there's a dance teacher in the world who has worked as hard as I have for my studio," she said. She may be right. For many years, Cheremeteff didn't even have a studio. She moved from one recreation facility to another, teaching a class here, a class there. When she was finally comfortably installed in a studio on 8th Avenue S. she was evicted because the convention centre was slotted smack in the middle of her dance floor. From there she moved to the third floor of 620-8th Ave. S.W. She's still there. Cheremeteff constructed most of that studio herself. She was 60 when she was ripping out walls, redoing the floor, painting, screwing on the barres. She couldn't afford to hire anyone. "I was tired for the two months after finishing it," she said.
But these days, Cheremeteff has the kind of lilt in her step that some women a quarter her age can't pull off. “I can still do the splits,” she says. And with that brief announcement she's sitting on the floor with one leg straight in front of her, the other straight behind. That's nothing. She can still dance on points.
Cheremeteff has coached thousands of local hopefuls through their first terrifying lifts and first dizzy pirouettes. "No excuses, just do it,” she instructs. In the 24 years the school has been open, only one student has twirled off to a professional dance career. That was Pierina Rose, 19, who was recently accepted by the Ontario Ballet Company.
The school may have produced more professionals had Cheremeteff encouraged her pupils to audition for the National Ballet School in Toronto. Each year, the school accepts talented young people from across Canada. "I never send students to the National Ballet School because their personality is taken away there." she said. "They don't show them how to put their heart into dancing." Cheremeteff does. "Now dance it." she orders those who are just executing the steps.
And on her request, the students put some life into the movements.
The way Cheremeteff can excite artistry in her pupils may be why the Calgary Russian Ballet School is so popular. It enrols about 200 students each term. But its popularity may also be due to the fact that at the Russian School the students have a teacher they can respect "Madame is a friend to many people," said Mimi Haeseker, one of her prized pupils.
"People who come to her after a while just wouldn't consider studying anywhere else." Cheremeteff has wisdom and grace a combination of qualities you don't often stumble across in the new world. To think of Canada as the new world may seem dated, but Cheremeteff still refers to where she immigrated from as "the old country. Where is the old country? Now here's a surprise. The head of the Calgary Russian Ballet School is not Russian. She's German. But she studied ballet with a Russian teacher.
And she fell in love with a Russian Count Michael DmitTe-wich Cheremeteff. They married when she was 18. He was 30. And for madame, that's when all the fun began. Circus performer That's when madame joined the circus. 'It was the nicest time of my life, being a circus artist." she said.
Count Cheremeteff was one of the thousands of Russians who immigrated during the Second World War. In Russia he was an accomplished Cossack rider, a skill that made him an integral part of the circus. It wasn't long before madame was up on the horses, too dangling from their necks, balancing on their backs. Cossack riding has been such a large part of madame's life that she shakes her head in disbelief when someone says they don't know what it is. But most Calgarians have never seen anything like it. Picture this: Eight horses in a circus ring, galloping at full tilt. Sitting on top of one is Madame Cheremeteff as a young woman.
Now she's dangling over the side, now at the front Urging the horses to run even faster is her husband, who stands in the centre of the circus ring cracking a whip. Cossak riding makes Calgary's controversial chuckwagon races seem pretty tame. 'Tor every performance, you had one foot in life and one foot in the grave." said madame. Did she ever fall off the horses? "Of course notl" she said. "If I did, I'd be dead." Started in Berlin Her courage to ride Cossak-style came from her husband.
'1 would do anything not to disappoint him." she said. After 10 years of Cossak riding and performing in circuses in Europe. Africa and India, the Cheremeteffs settled in Berlin, Germany. When her husband died, that's where Madame opened her first schooL By this time there were three little Cheremeteffs: Christina, Alexandra and Dmitry. "But the girls are not dancers," she said.
It's obvious Cheremeteff considers her son just a bit special because he's a dancer. And he's not just any dancer. He's a lead dancer with the famed Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. Dmitry often visits his mother in the summer to teach at her school. For those few weeks, madame surrenders her 14 classes a week and resigns herself to working the tape machine.
"In the old country I had a pianist who looked like a cleaning lady, but had hands made of gold," says madame. She tried three different pianists here in the new world, but gave up on the idea of having live accompaniment when they couldn't perform to her liking.
[…..] missing text […]
Madame Cheremwteff substitutes the work of a pianist with 300 records and 250 tapes. "What's the next music, mama?" asks Dmitry, strolling over to the tape machine in his blue pantsuit. Madame frantically flips through the pages that list her place on the tape. Dmitry gives her an exasperated look.
She sticks out her tongue. In the comer of the studio is Dmitry's baby, Julia Usually she sleeps through the class her father teaches and her mother, Simone, also a dancer takes. But today, (baby) Julia is obviously not tired. Today she has decided to be cranky. Madame holds the baby and tries to stop her crying. No amount of cooing, jiggling or rubbing of the back is going to Julia wants her mother. Simone leaves her place at the barre to come comfort her child.
"Now, you stay in class," says madame. "Julia's going to have to learn how it is when she's still a baby."
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