Interview with Sascha Paar, Ballet Dancer: “I Started with Ballet by Accident”

When I first met Karl Reinisch to ask him if there was a chance for me to restart with ballet after more than 30 years pause (by the way, he promptly said yes) he showed me around in his ballet studio. There are many framed photos on the walls in the reception room and he took me straight to one picture showing a young man dancing. “This is Sascha, my last professional student. He is very talented. I was with him in St Petersburg at the Vaganova Ballet Academy where he had passed the qualifying examination …” Every time I met Karl Reinisch later he gave me news from Sascha who was then studying classical dance at the Palucca Academy for Dance in Dresden, Germany and is by now member of the ballet company at Theater Chemnitz.

Sascha, when starting studying at the Palucca Academy

Some weeks ago I got the chance to meet Sascha personally at the Chalet Masenberg where there are ballet summer courses. As everybody knows that I am addicted to ballet it was a big joy that I was allowed to take photos from him during a class with students of different levels and even when he taught “Pas de deux” to one of the students. And he was so kind to reply to questions concerning his studies, his dance experience, his daily life as dancer and and and …

Q: How and where did your ballet career begin? Was it by accident? By chance?

A: My ballet career really started by accident. The “accident” had a name and its name was Karl Reinisch. Once, I remember it was Monday evening, I went to his dancing school and wanted to attend a musical dance class. Karl Reinisch advised me to start with ballet as it is the “alphabet of dance”. As I had no experience I trusted him and only one day later I had my tights on and attended my first ballet class. I was always interested in and captivated by arts. No matter if it was music, drama or dance. When I started training ballet I soon realized that there was more hard work and ambition behind it. This was what interested me most at the beginning. By and by I realised how much beauty can there be in the dance. It took a while as I probably didn´t see any beauty in what I was doing. Hehe …

Karl Reinisch (sitting), Sascha (left, twice) and me (far left)

Q: Was there an inspiration, a dancer you admired? Or was it a movie, an evening at the opera that awoke your interest in ballet?

A: It is not easy to say when there was the light bulb moment. Only through learning, training and gathering the technical knowledge I found once out that I want to become dancer. And yes, there was an inspiration – the Ballets Russes. I have been interested in everything they were doing. What they had created and have been creating was always my biggest inspiration. – To be continued …