Tiit Helimets and Molly Smolen Diary

Helimets Diary

Tiit Helimets was born in Estonia and is married to Molly Smolen. Both danced in Birmingham Royal Ballet for 6 years as Principal Dancers. They left BRB in 2005. Tiit joined San Francisco Ballet in 2005 as Principal Dancer and Molly freelanced for a half a year and joined SFB as a Principal Dancer in 2006.

Hi Everyone,

It has been a long time since I left England and Birmingham Royal Ballet and a lot of stuff has happened since then.

Our move to the States was good and it took a long time but it finally arrived. We were so happy to have all of our things there. Just a little advice, never take wine glasses with you then you move--they will not survive (even when they are packed professionally)!

The hardest part of it all was being alone in San Francisco. Molly came often, but a word of advice: don't do it if you love your other half. Living apart is so hard and people tend to grow apart, and that's no good for a relationship.

So anyway, now that we are finally together in San Francisco everything seems to be back to normal.

My first season in San Francisco Ballet.

It was exciting and hard. I felt that I was artistically growing again and I had a lot of new opportunities to prove myself. Nobody was familiar with me so it was interesting what corrections I got in rehearsals, and I had a lot of work to do toward improving those faults in me.

The first ballet I performed was Helgi's Nutcracker.

It was different choreography and it was a fun experience perfecting it. My partners were Lorena Feijoo and Yuan Yuan Tan. They were really nice to me so it was easy working on it.

My next ballet was Swan Lake, where my partner was Yuan Yuan Tan. She is like the perfect Swan Queen, long and flexible. It was an honor working with her on it.

Tiit Helimets in Helgi Tomasson's "Swan Lake"
Photo:Eric Tomasson

The story is slightly different compared to Birmingham Royal Ballet, so I had to find a different dramatic approach in Helgi's production. The hardest part is that there is no intermission between the third and fourth act. So when I first ran the whole ballet I was pretty beat. Also, in the fourth act, there is a different adagio, to different music (which I had never seen or heard before, but it's just lovely). The great thing I forgot to mention was that the stage is huge here and I can't tell you enough how good it feels to be able to take a real preparation before each jump because there's room. I felt like I was able to dance on a stage that was built to my dimensions.

Tiit Helimets in Helgi Tomasson's "Swan Lake"
Photo:Eric Tomasson

After that, I performed Apollo which I was familiar with. It was slightly different, an older, original version. It seemed to make more sense story-wise. It was really fun in the coda when he is celebrating his power and talent. Usually, I would be tired at that point but I found that I had so much energy because I followed the story all the way through.

The next thing I performed was Magrittomania, choreographed by Yuri Possokhov. It's about Magritte and his work. I enjoyed working with Yuri because he is so clear about what he wants. My partner in it was Muriel Maffre. She is an amazing dancer, somebody who is hard to describe without seeing her dance in person. She is tall and incredibly flexible with a lot of strength. The whole ballet is exhausting for the leading guy so I felt a real sense of accomplishment once it was over. I got to dance it a lot because there were some injuries, so I got extra shows.

Next ballet in the rep was The Fifth Season by Helgi. I worked on it with him a lot and it turned out to be a huge critical success. I was glad to be part of it. My part is the long pas de deux, which I danced with Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun. She is a young talent out of the Royal Ballet School. Someone to look out for. The music in it is lovely.

The next ballet in line was Allegro Brilliante. It's a great ballet for the woman, not so much for the guy. Well, the reason I think so is that I like to turn and there is only one sequence where I can turn. But I enjoyed it because I got to be first cast and dance with Lorena Feijoo. It was an honor to do it on opening night and it went great.

After that the whole season was over, it felt like a blink of the eye.

It was a great experience overall; many new ballets under my belt and it felt just great.

So I leave you here but there is a lot more to tell.

Bye everyone, I miss you all very much.

But it's always sunny in San Francisco!

Posted by Tiit Helimets at September 11, 2006 03:56 PM