Tiit Helimets and Molly Smolen Diary

Molly's Diary

Molly Smolen was born in Philadelphia and is married to Tiit Helimets. She was a Principal Dancer with Birmingham Royal Ballet for six years, leaving the company in 2005 to move back to America. She joined San Francisco Ballet as a Principal Dancer in 2006, joining Tiit, who is also a Principal Dancer with SFB.

Well, it’s been quite a year! It was difficult to leave Birmingham Royal Ballet after spending six years there, but it was the right choice for us to make. We needed to move on and try new things and so, I tried freelancing for a season. I knew it would be difficult but it turned out to be even harder than I had expected. I did some interesting work, including a new version of “Cinderella”, “Midsummer Nights Dream”, and “Coppelia” but it was really the in between times that were difficult to deal with. Without a regular schedule it’s hard to stay motivated! And so, this past spring when Helgi offered me a contract I decided to join San Francisco Ballet as a Principal.

The company was to be touring to New York City after the first four weeks of rehearsals and I didn’t expect to be dancing at all. Imagine my surprise when Helgi told me he wanted me to dance the pas de deux from “Chopiniana” at the opening night gala at New York State Theatre! I had never danced the role before and it was a great challenge to work on. It had been a long time since I had learned a new classical role! Helgi took a lot of my rehearsals himself and I learned a lot working with him. My partner for the piece was Ruben Martin, this season’s other new Principal, although unlike me, Ruben was promoted from inside the company. For me, the challenge of the role was to create an effortless, floating effect while at the same time having the strength to sustain each movement through the music. I had seen the part danced very seriously by many people but I didn’t see it that way myself. I thought that she should be almost playful, dancing both with her partner and for herself at the same time. I enjoyed the entire rehearsal process and the performance also went well. It was quite a thrill to dance my first show with SFB on a new stage in New York City!

Not long after returning to the West Coast, Tiit and I had to start preparing a pas de deux for a festival in Miami at which we had been invited to perform. We chose “Grand Pas Classique”, a piece that I had not danced in many years and which was completely new for Tiit. It was fun to come back to something I hadn’t done in awhile and try to dance it in a fresh way. One thing that helped was all of the experience of performing that I’ve gained over the years enabled me to relax on stage and just balance as long as I wanted to in the adagio! As a teenager (when I last performed it) I just didn’t have that kind of confidence.

The shows in Florida were..........interesting. The whole festival was somewhat disorganized which made it difficult to focus on what we were there to do. We flew into Miami on Thursday night and had to be driven straight down to Palm Beach, finally arriving there just after midnight. Of course there was nowhere open at the time of night for dinner! The next day we had a stage rehearsal and then the first gala in the evening. We opened the third section and by the time we finally got onstage it was nearly 11pm! After the show it was straight back to Miami, where we checked into our hotel around 2am. Then the following day it was class, another stage rehearsal and then another gala. We were meant to open the second section of the show so I planned everything out, went to the theatre and started applying my makeup. An hour before the show was due to start the organizers came around with a revised performance order which had us dancing in the middle of the third act instead! And so, there I was, with my makeup half on, running about two hours ahead of schedule! Like I said, it was all just a bit disorganized! The whole time we were in Florida I only felt in control when I was actually dancing, which I suppose is all that matters in the end anyway. By the way, the shows went very well. I can, after all, balance.

And now we’re back in San Francisco, rehearsing new ballets for the 2007 season. I’m really looking forward to my first time dancing at the War Memorial Opera House here. And you’ll get to hear all about it!

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!