Clare Henney: That Guy in Tights

The first time I saw ballet dancer Sascha Radetsky was in the movie Center Stage back in 2000. I remember just being in awe of his talent and I’ve been a fan of the guy for 12 years now. I heard that he has gone on to do a couple of TV movies and commercials but apart from that his concentration has always been in the world of ballet, where he danced as a soloist with the American Ballet Theater and then moved to the Dutch National Ballet before returning to ABT after a year.  In 2008, he wrote an article called Don’t Judge Me By My Tights for Newsweek Magazine where he talked about the stereotypes on male dancers. I loved that article and I admired his talent for writing as well. Four years after that, he wrote another article for Dance Magazine called Breaking Free which talked about working through injuries. Again, something well written that made me admire him even more. I loved the part where he said:

…in the grand calculus of virtues, love and kindness rank higher than professional achievement.

I thought that was a good point.  I love the passion that he has for dance, the humility and the fact that he seems to be a guy with a good head on his shoulders.  I remember having a huge crush on him during his Center Stage days and to this day, I envy his wife, Filipina and fellow ABT dancer Stella Abrera. Ballet is not as popular as other forms of dance in the country so I don’t really get to hear much about Sascha Radetsky except for a few small news items/interviews/videos every now and then so you can imagine how happy I was to see that there is a new video interview with him on YouTube. I love that he quoted Dead Poet’s Society in the interview.  His insights on dance and popular culture were interesting (and yes, I was surprised that he said that sometime So You Think You Can Dance can be cheesy).  It gave me a closer look at the guy, something I’ve never had before because I have limited access to things about him. Back when Center Stage was had just been shown there was talk of Sascha coming over to dance with the Philippine Ballet Theater.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen because he suffered an injury in the US.  I’m still hoping that I could have the opportunity to watch him perform live one day before he retires from dancing. Here’s a clip from Don Quixote with Sascha Radetsky.  Sorry about the blurry vid but it’s the best and latest I could find of him dancing.  Hope one day I can see something like this up close!

Photo Source: MPG Sport