Marco Bozzato on the Emotional and Expressive Psychology of Dance

MILAN, ITALY — For centuries now, the distinctive sole of a pointe shoe has become synonymous with many things. Namely, next-level poise, thanks to world-famous artists who have pushed ballet from the theatre’s fixtures into a broader realm.

Marco Bozzato, who began dancing at a private school in Venice at the age of 4, knows that well. “I’m not sure why, but back then my mum asked me what sport I liked to begin with, and I told her I wanted to dance,” he recalls. “So she signed me up for dance classes,” he says.

Bozzato feels lucky and grateful to have had a supportive family network that held no bias against his choices since early on in his childhood. “Nobody in my family had ever danced: my first end-of-year show was Peter Pan, and my mum sewed the costume for me,” he says. “I really have no idea of what brought me to ballet, but what I know is that I have kept dancing ever since,” he opines. From that moment, Bozzato kept attending more prestigious institutions until he was accepted at La Scala’s Academy in Milan, which was a first important step into the dance spectrum.

_{Photographer: Andrea Cenetiempo}

Fast forward two years, and he moved to London to complete his studies, graduating from the English National Ballet School. “When I was there, I felt appreciated for the first time,” he says. “In Italy, there was always a fight between teachers who liked me and those who didn’t, and this was mostly because of my height,” he tells me.

“I’ve always been tall for my age, and a lot of them didn’t know how to deal with it and didn’t believe in me,” he confesses, explaining how “somehow, even if I was a very shy and sensitive boy, this never stopped me. It’s funny  because it’s like my brain never considers any other future for myself, so no matter how hard it was, this was the way to go.”

Shortly after starting his professional career, he suffered his first big injury (namely, the rupture of the cruciate ligament in my left knee), which stopped him from dancing for almost a year. “I made it back, and started a career in the fashion industry in the meantime,” he says.

_{Photographer: Andrea Cenetiempo}

_{Photographer: Andrea Cenetiempo}

Once recovered, he was asked to join the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, and finally, his dreams came to fruition. “I was working for one of the most prestigious theatres in the world, which created the version of Swan Lake that we know and perform on the whole planet and some of the most famous stars of the ballet history,” he says.

After a few years in Russia, he moved back to Italy and started creating in different styles, on different occasions, and with different clients. “Milan was feeling tight after a while, so I moved to Paris to keep freelancing and working in fashion with a bigger launching pad,” he says. “Unfortunately my second big injury occurred and I broke the cruciate ligament of the other knee. But guess what? This didn’t stop me either!” he exclaims. “I’m still here, still dancing and still modelling.”

Throughout his career, Bozzato never looked up to any dancer for inspiration; not by choice, but it never truly happened. “What inspires me is music, and I get everything I need from it: Emotions, strength and ideas,” he says. “My first big role was Rothbart when I was still in school, and this opened my eyes a lot; I finally started believing in myself after it,” he says.

“Another highlight of my career is definitely that my first show with Mariinsky was a soloist role in La Sylphide, and many other came after that, like in La Bayadere and in Romeo and Juliet, but my favorite one was the lead firebird in The Little Humpback Horse, where I was partnering one of my favorite ballerinas in the world, Alina Somova.”

_{Photographer: Andrea Cenetiempo}

On Dance as a Form of Expression

“I now realise how much I unintentionally use dance to express everything I have inside. In  the studio all of my problems are gone, it’s only me and the music. I think this is why I never  stopped dancing even in hard times, even if I didn’t know it, my body could feel it. It was the way I was letting everything out. All of the bullying I was receiving for dancing was solved by the simple virtue of dancing more. All of my insecurities, including the ones in ballet, were also solved  by dancing. Dancing was (and still is) my medicine. We know that movement helps emotions and dancing is the best way for doing that.”

On The Joys and Thrills of Dance

“Dancing you lift your vibrations, you can’t feel bad after it, it’s impossible! It brings you closer to a higher dimension and aligns you better with the right frequencies. When I have a bad day and I take a class I feel better after it; might sound silly but it’s the truth. After a show, the feelings I have are joy and peace. I can’t explain it more than how I already have. Dance is my medicine for a happy life, and I’m sure it would help many other people if only we took away the stereotypes around it.”

_{Photographer: Andrea Cenetiempo}

On Dance’s Hardships and Systemic Complexities  

“Ballet is fucking hard in every single way. It’s hard for the body because the movements are very unnatural, it’s hard for the brain because you have to remember countless steps and combinations, it’s hard because as we all know, the theatre world lives on the rule: “your loss is my win”, the competition is crazy! You are constantly compared to everyone around you, and you are constantly put in front of  a mirror to find all of your weaknesses and flaws, so you can correct them and become a better dancer. In the end, all of this is for a good cause, to make you a better dancer, but sometimes we forget we are human beings, not dancing machines.”

On Mental Health  

“I made my graduation thesis at ENBS about what I thought the bases of ballet are: passion,  purity, and power. By passion I meant loving what you do, by purity I meant talent, and by power I meant strength, both physical and mental. You can’t be a good dancer if you haven’t got a strong mindset, it is as important as having strong muscles and bones. We know how hard of an industry it is and if you’re fragile, you will break under pressure. You can’t be weak otherwise you can’t sustain the hard work, all the hours in the studio, all the corrections, all the criticism and all the competition around you. You need to be strong: your muscles have to be trained and powerful, your bones need to be strong and healthy, and your mind needs to be strong to sustain every single thing talked about above.”

_{Photographer: Andrea Cenetiempo}

On Future Hopes and Expectations  

“My hopes for the future are to keep growing as an artist, sharing my art with the world as  much as I can, both through dance and through fashion. I hope to be able to give the magic of  art to people, because we all need it in our life. I hope to fight the stigmas and stereotypes,  proving that dance is just a tool for bringing us happiness and taking us to a higher dimension and better place. Not a time loss moving after music or something that just little girls do because it’s common.”

by Chidozie Obasi