To say Alia Al Neyadi is beautiful is an understatement, and it’s no wonder she turned out to be such a stunner – her mother is Ukrainian Master Ballerina Svetlana Al Neyadi and her father is an Emirati national.
Written by: Laura Fulton
Considering her heritage, it’s also little wonder Alia turned to ballet at the tender age of five. “I’ve only ever studied [ballet] with my mum, but she doesn’t separate us,” says Alia of her mother, who earned her master’s degree in ballet in the strenuous Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow.
“She treats me the same as everyone else in the class. If she thinks someone else can do better, she’ll tell them, but if she thinks I can do better, she picks on me too.”
Though she’s been immersed in the world of ballet since she was six months old, accompanying her mother to practice even as a newborn, Alia feels her own passion for the athletic art form. “I was actually born in New Orleans in America, but I came to Abu Dhabi when I was five. I studied gymnastics for a year, but after that I started studying ballet with my mother and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since,” says Alia, who is now 16 years old.
“Gymnastics and ballet are sort of the same, but gymnastics is only about doing tricks. When my mum started teaching, I decided I wanted to do something better.”
Ballet may be Alia’s specialty, but it’s not the only style she excels at. “We do character, modern, and ballroom dance in addition to ballet,” says Alia, who achieved marks of 98 percent at a professional ballet workshop in New Orleans in 2007. Would she ever go on a competition show like ‘So You Think You Can Dance’? “I don’t know, but I think it would be really fun. I think they should bring something like that to the UAE. That would be
even better.”
So how does a typical prima ballerina spend her day? Check out this busy schedule:
6.45am: Alia gets up to get ready for school; she’s in Grade 11 at Abu Dhabi International School and looking forward to graduation next year. “I’m not sure what I want to do in university yet, but something to do with art and management, maybe something to do with business. I know I want to go to New York.”
12.00pm: On a break from class, Alia hangs out with her school friends. “Most of my best friends are with me in ballet – most of us who are in the troupe now have been dancing together for nine or ten years." Though most of Alia’s dance friends go to a different school, she doesn’t have any problem socialising with her non-dancer classmates. “A lot of my friends from school wanted to do dance with me, so they feel involved with my life, too. I’m able to make time for everyone, not just the other dancers.”
3.00pm: After school, Alia comes home for lunch, a bit of relaxing, and homework. Ballet dancers traditionally have a reputation for agonising over their weight, but Alia doesn’t stress. “I once lost more than five kilos in a week and a half, and it’s just from not eating at night,” says the ultra-fit teen. “I usually have a healthy breakfast – this morning I had corn flakes – and then for lunch I have what my grandmother makes for me, typical Russian food. We always, always start with soup, then salad, meat, and potatoes. I don’t ever eat potatoes, though, or chocolate. My mother eats chocolate, but I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t eat chocolate, which helps me to not gain weight.”
6.00pm: Though she’s already put in a whole day of classes and studying, Alia’s day is really just beginning – she spends three hours a day practicing ballet. Saturdays find her in the studio for a gruelling seven hours most weekends; the only days she takes a break from dancing are Fridays and Sundays. She’s most recently been rehearsing for her troupe’s huge annual show, Fantasia Ballet – in which she’s been a soloist for the last ten years – but she performs regularly. “We usually perform in December and again in January, then we have our big show in the spring, and we do a lot of travelling around. We’re actually going to do a competition in the Ukraine in two weeks and then again in April, and then in September we’re going on a tour all around India.”
9.30pm: Finally home for the night, Alia eats a very light snack – strawberries or some other fruit – then finishes her homework and goes to bed to rest up and do it all again tomorrow.
Final thoughts: Though Alia hasn’t decided what she’s going to do with the rest of her life, she does believe dance will always be a part of it. “I might end up being a professional ballerina, but who knows? I’m obviously always going to do ballet; the way some people go to the gym, I’ll do ballet every day.”
