Dancer Luciana Sagioro is hired until retirement – 10/02/2024 – Equilíbrio

Bar, center, jumps, spins and repeat. Lots and lots of rehearsals. At night, dance for thousands of people on the stage of the Opera Garnier, the home of the Paris Opera dancers, one of the most traditional and renowned ballet companies in the world. Luciana Sagioro, 18 years old, lives the dream routine of many young people and adults trying to pursue a career in dance.

At the last Joinville Dance Festival, in Santa Catarina, the young woman taught classes, which sold out in a few days, posed for photos with thousands of dancers and had her face featured in several advertising campaigns. The previous year, she won the best dancer at the festival and, along with it, a legion of fans who voted her the greatest inspiration of her generation in Brazilian ballet.

Since the beginning of the year, Luciana signed a contract with the Paris Opera to dance until her retirement. She was the first and, until now, only Brazilian in the corps de ballet. Before that, he spent a year as a student at the Opera’s ballet school, which he entered after securing third place in the Prix de Lausanne, “the ballet Olympics”, as the competition that brings together dancers from all over the world is known.

The now professional dancer has been dancing since she was 5 years old and preparing specifically for her career since she was 9, when she moved from Juiz de Fora (MG) to Rio de Janeiro to study at the school where her inspiration, Mayara Magri, now a soloist at Royal Ballet in London, studied. THE Sheetshe tells her story of “determination and a lot of willpower” and how she wrote her career plan at age 8 and made her parents believe in a child.

Beginning and trajectory

“Since my first class, at the age of three, I asked my mother to enroll me. I did the classes perfectly. I was passionate, I never missed a day.” Like many children, Luciana started ballet classes early, enrolled by her mother. After a few years, however, I was already in love and certain that I wanted to be a professional dancer. “That’s when I started writing, very young, alone, a career plan for myself. I was 8 years old.”

When she was around six years old, researching ballet, she met Mayara Magri and decided that she would follow in all her footsteps. The first step was to study at Petite Danse, in Rio de Janeiro, a school run by Nelma Darzi, with teacher Patrícia Salgado, a former dancer at Stuttgart Ballet. “My family was always very supportive, but I never imagined that this would actually be taken so seriously. And then one day I talked to my parents and asked them for the opportunity, so that they would really believe in this dream of mine.”

She says that her parents made it a condition for her to continue getting good grades at school: “I wanted so much to prove to my parents, to show them that it was really my dream, that my grades had increased.” She says she certainly did the right thing: “I made the smallest opportunity my parents gave me the greatest opportunity of my life.”

Her parents agreed to send her to Rio twice a week. After a year of small weekly trips, the school asked Luciana to start training every day, to further improve her techniques and an alternative came up at the right time: “My old nanny, who had been working for us for over 15 years old, he said he would help me make my dream come true and he moved with me. He is also an angel who appeared in our life and lived with me from the age of 9 until I was 15 there in Rio.”

For six years, Luciana trained daily at Petite Danse and participated in many national and some international competitions. “During the years I spent there in Rio, I did a lot of competitions, I became a more recognized dancer. All of this with the aim of receiving a scholarship in Europe.”

At the age of 15, the student was selected for the Prix de Lausanne, the “ballet Olympics”. The competition takes place in Lausanne, Switzerland, and brings together around 90 young people aged 15 to 18, from 18 countries, who compete for scholarships at the biggest dance schools in the world, presenting classic and contemporary choreography. Securing third place, she was able to choose between all the biggest options: the Royal Academy, in London, Bolshoi and Vaganova, in Russia, Joffrey Ballet, in New York, and Paris Opera, her chosen one.

“I chose the Paris Opera over all the other companies because I wanted to make history. I had the opportunity to be the first Brazilian, so I did it to show everyone who dreams that it is possible”, says the dancer. In the last year, two more Brazilians were selected for the same school, following in the footsteps of the pioneer.

After a year as a student at the school, Luciana faced a competition to become part of the company’s corps de ballet — as dancers who dance together and are not yet soloists — are called. Among more than 400 candidates from all over the world, once again, the Minas Gerais woman was selected “first time”, alongside just one other competitor.

What if it didn’t work?

It is often said that the phrase “what if it doesn’t work?” It is not part of the vocabulary of winners, of those who achieve success. The dancer seems to agree, since, for her, there would be no other option than to dance outside of Brazil: “Our theaters are always on strike, the dancers’ salaries are low. We are one of the countries with the most talent in the world, but we don’t we value.”

Luciana says that the devaluation of art in the country discourages many potential dancers, and this is intensified by the competitiveness among those fighting for an opportunity. She says she experienced situations that seem like something out of a movie: her costume was cut, a needle was put in her sneakers and she was excluded from her friend groups at school. Only in France did he find true friendships in the world of dance.

Although she didn’t have many defeats, there was one that left a deep impression on her. In 2019, in her penultimate participation in the Joinville Dance Festival, for the first time she did not secure a podium in the competition: “That day, of course, I cried, I was sad, but, on the same day, I looked into my mother’s eyes and I said: ‘Don’t disbelieve me, because from today on, I truly choose dance. It’s from my defeat that I choose what I want'”.

Still, the young woman says that the defeat at the festival was no greater than the difficulty of being away from her family or facing competitiveness in the world of dance.

Dream come true

At 18 years old and employed until retirement, her certainty is a rarity among so many young people who have not yet found a career they are passionate about. “Today, at the age of 18, I have been dancing for 15 years. 15 years ago I chose to complete my soul. Because my soul really dances. I don’t know what I would do without it. I know it was the right choice, because I think that dance also chose me”, she says.

Currently, in addition to her ballet career, Luciana does advertising work for dance and fashion brands. His mother, a journalist, began working as his manager and advisor. She makes a point of emphasizing the support of her, her father and her sisters throughout her career.

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