P#25 Q4A: Infiltrating the Bolshoi Ballet

Tenacity is Rewarded

Joe McNally: Lots of folks have the notion that stories, magazines, and journalism are produced by or goes forward with large mandates or imperatives. Nothing could be further from the truth. It spins on whims and personal likes and dislikes and interests -- editors who have a tendency to want to do a certain kind of story as opposed to another type of story.

I've always photographed dance and I really love to do it. I had been working in Russia a great deal. My Russian fixer, a guy named Igor and I were in Chechnya. We were in a bomb shelter. We were weathering the second siege of Chechnya in this bomb shelter with a Chechnyan family.

We were taking fire from Russian helicopter gun ships so to pass the time we just started talking. Igor says, "You know, I have a friend who is one of the lead dancers for the ballet show." I said, "I love to photograph dance. Why don't we do that story?" He said, "Sure."

I went back to my editors at LIFE and said, "I have a connection with the Bolshoi ballet. I think I can really do a great story." They said, "Forget it. We're not interested in the Bolshoi ballet." I said, "I am and I want to go do this story." They said finally, "Alright, if you want to go, go. But don't spend any money."

So I was working for LIFE Magazine which is part of Time Warner which is a multi, multibillion dollar company so I went to Russia on my frequent flyer miles. I stayed in my fixer's tenement. I didn't even bother staying in a hotel because I was determined to get this story done. I was determined to bring back these pictures and basically just show them and say, "Look, this is what you would be missing. Here, this is a worthwhile thing to do."

I wanted to see the Russian dancers as a vehicle to take a look at Russian life, which was very much in turmoil at the time. I used them in various ways to look around the streets of Moscow because I figured when the country is plummeting and people are rolling tanks down the street, nobody pays attention to the arts. Who's going to pay attention to ballet dancers?

But I've always had an affinity for photographing them, so I started taking them around the city and posing them. The other thing that happened was the commercial director of the Bolshoi, when I first sat down with him to propose the story, casually asked me for $1000 cash. He said, "Just for good faith, give me $1000."

I didn't have that kind of money on me, but what happened was what oftentimes happens if you start to spin things in your direction photographically. I photographed a couple of the dancers and I made them prints. I highly advocate this as a piece of advice to your readership or your listeners out there.

Always make prints for people, bring them back and show them. I started showing these prints to the dancers. Before you knew it, outside of the official controls of the Bolshoi, I had dancers calling me saying, "I'd like to work with you."

Before you knew it, it was like a revolt in the dance corps where the official channels to the Bolshoi were not completely cooperating with me. The dancers wanted it very, very badly. I was making these beautiful prints, taking them, and putting them on rooftops, in subways, in steam baths, posting them on statuaries and off of buildings.

It was something they had never done before and they all gravitated towards it. The Bolshoi is a very formal company so their photography followed along those lines and it was very strict -- kind of almost foreboding in a lot of ways.

Here, they're having a chance to express themselves in real time, in real life, and they really loved it.

Audri Lanford: I can imagine. That must have been a new experience for them in many ways.

Joe McNally: Very much so.

Audri Lanford: Why was LIFE Magazine against doing this story?

Joe McNally: In a sense they felt it was outside of their editorial mission because they're a domestic magazine with a largely domestic readership. Ultimately, to their credit, they ran a 12-page story that was received very well by the readership, but their initial reaction was like, "Why would the family in Peoria be interested in the Bolshoi ballet? We need to do stuff about down home American things." That was their initial resistance anyway.

In Closing

How does one go about approaching a unique photograph opportunity? Sometimes it's about taking risks. Joe McNally didn't know his photographs of the Bolshoi Ballet would be a hit, but he believed in the project and he took a risk. That risk definitely paid off in the long run.