Prima Ballerina: A life in ballet

The lights in the hall slowly go dark.

The orchestra tunes their instruments and warms up before their performance. The sound of feet pattering onto the stage fills the room as dancers come into place.

Finally, enter stage right and into the spotlight la prima ballerina. The lead.

She gracefully dances to centre stage, raises an arm and stands in croisé derrière, body straight, right leg behind and arm up. She holds the pose for a moment and begins her performance.

Before she knows it, the performance is finished and Gizella Witkowsky is taking her final bow. Her 20-year career with the National Ballet of Canada ends with that.

But her career did not end on a bitter note. She chose to walk away at the top of her game. She explained that although she was offered to do other smaller roles, changes in directors and choreographers led her to understanding that it was time to let someone else take the lead. She also got to perform her favorite ballet, Sphinx, as her final performance.

Meeting Witkowsky today, it is clear that she is nowhere near the shadow of her former self. She is vivacious, always smiling, quick to laugh, eloquent and graceful. And most importantly, through her teaching job at the Quinte Ballet School of Canada, she is giving back to the community that has given her so much.

One of the things she wants to instill in students is that “nothing is instantaneous. Ballet takes time and practice,” Witkowsky said, implying the stark opposition to the current social media culture.

“I hope they learn from it as much as I did, and how it can colour your life, enhance your senses, mostly your heart and your soul. It’s really fulfilling,” Witkowsky explained.

Looking back at her own career, she talked about two instances where she realized how fulfilling it had been. The first was right after her final show. She was buying groceries in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market and a stranger stopped her.

The woman told Witkowsky that she went to the ballet specifically to watch Witkowsky dance. The woman told her, “I was going through a terrible marriage, and you gave me strength, as a woman, to keep going and to survive.”

The second instance Witkowsky remembers vividly was when Howard Meadows, the head of wardrobe for the National Ballet of Canada, brought a little girl who wanted to come backstage, see the costumes and meet the Sugar Plum Fairy during The Nutcracker. Witkowsky agreed wholeheartedly.

The little girl came, she got to see and touch the costumes, and Witkowsky even put the Sugar Plum Fairy princess’ crown on the little girl’s head.

The next day Meadows thanked Witkowsky. He then went on to explain, “The little girl’s mother has cancer. And she said to me ‘Please thank Gizella for that wonderful performance and for coming backstage.’ ”

According to Gizella, the mother told Meadows “for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel the pain because I was watching the ballet.”

“These moments are extraordinary,” said Witkowsky, holding back tears brought on by the memories.

It is these moments that are so fulfilling for Witkowsky, engrained deeply in her memory, and it is what she hopes the students will one day get to experience.

Witkowsky said that the teachers tell the students regularly “the reason you’re up on stage is because you can. The reason people come and see you is because they can’t. But they love it.

“I just wish Belleville knew more about this place. I really do,” Witkowsky said. She referenced the city’s high knowledge of hockey, but that people knew little about ballet. “It’s not just prancey prancey. It’s gruelling and hard work.”

At the end of the day, Witkowsky has an insurmountable pride in her students and her work. Both she and Catherine Taylor, the artistic director of the Quinte School of Ballet of Canada, said that they cried at the end-of-year performances.

Born in Canada to Hungarian immigrants, Witkowsky started ballet at a very young age because her parents needed to learn English. A friend offered Witkowsky’s mother a pamphlet for the National Ballet School of Canada, and Witkowsky started taking classes sporadically. As she got older, she became more dedicated and practiced harder.

At the age of 17, two weeks prior to graduating, she was offered a place in the National Ballet of Canada because of all the hard work she had put in during her schooling. She chose to finish the last two weeks and then join the company. From there, came a two-decade long career, from smaller roles to prima ballerina and an uncountable number of performances.

It was, as Witkowsky put it herself, her destiny.