An audience sees the finished performance. It doesn’t see the rehearsals, the repetition, or the thoughts racing through the dancer’s mind. Ballet teaches you to hide the effort. The audience should see line, music and grace, nothing else.

Photography works in a similar way. A finished image can look calm, light and easy. It almost never was.

Ballet in the City

The photographs that feel most like me are the Ballet in the City images: pointe shoes on Paris bridges, arabesques in front of the Eiffel Tower, a tutu on the stone steps near Notre-Dame. One of them became a viral post. But what matters to me is why they feel true. They are relaxed, imperfect, a little playful. They are not a storybook ballerina. They show that one woman can hold many energies.

What you don’t see is the warm-up. Pointe work on a street is not a stage. There is no sprung floor and no barre, and the body needs to be ready before the first frame. You don’t see the tries that didn’t work, or the moment I laugh because I fell out of the pose again.

Most of the pose is mine

People sometimes think the photographer tells the model exactly what to do. Some photographers send reference images, but that is rare. I estimate that about ninety per cent of my posing and image decisions come from my own instinct. The discipline and presence I learned on stage are still there. The camera lets me discover more versions of myself.

But no image is mine alone. Collaboration is creating something that neither person could have created alone. I am grateful to every photographer I work with, and you will always find their names next to their work on this site.

Why I want to show the effort

Sometimes success looks beautiful or easy from the outside. Inside, it can be a big fight. I still love beauty. But I don’t want to use beauty to hide the truth.

So I will show you both. The image, and the take that didn’t work. The arabesque on the bridge, and the small version you can do at your kitchen counter. Because the line you see in the photograph doesn’t come from how high the leg goes. It comes from a strong standing leg and a long back, built over many hours nobody saw.

Every graceful moment holds hours you never saw. Don’t hide the effort. Honour it.

Zuza

The track for this post is Hours You Never Saw, from the Zuza Movement album. Listen on Apple Music.

In a ballet studio, the mirror is everywhere. It covers a whole wall. You see yourself from the moment you walk in until the moment you leave.

The mirror is supposed to help a dancer correct her line: the angle of the arm, the height of the leg, the place of the head. And it does. But it can also teach you something else, quietly, every day. It can teach you to divide yourself into flaws.

A list instead of a woman

After years of correction, I started to see my body as a list. This part too much, that part not enough. When your body is both your instrument and the thing people assess every day, it becomes easy to treat it as a project that is never finished.

I don’t think I was unusual. Many dancers learn this. And I think many people who have never stood in a ballet studio know it too, from other mirrors: the bathroom, the changing room, the phone camera.

What I practise now

I am learning, still, to stand in front of a mirror and see a woman, not a list of imperfections. It doesn’t happen every day. Some days the list comes back. But I have a few small habits that help me.

I use the mirror for a job, then I look away. If I check my posture or the line of my arm, the mirror has done its work. I don’t stay to judge everything else.

I ask how it feels, not only how it looks. A plié can look correct and feel terrible. Now I trust the feeling first.

I notice what my body did, not only how it looked doing it. It carried me up the stairs. It held a balance for ten seconds. It danced for many years. That is a lot.

I don’t compare. Comparison is the one partner who always steps on your toes. Another woman’s body is not a measure for mine.

Body, mind and soul together

Today I know that physical appearance cannot create happiness by itself. Body, mind and soul need to be connected. Meditation helps me feel present. Rest helps me hear what constant effort once covered.

When I practise with others, I want the mirror to be optional. If you practise at home with me, you don’t need one. You need a chair, a little space, and the willingness to feel your body from the inside.

The mirror is for your line, not your worth.

Zuza

Welcome to my Journal. This is the first entry, and I want to begin with the sentence that has followed me for years: movement means freedom.

When I was younger, freedom meant something very different. Movement meant being technically perfect. It meant standing at the barre and looking for every detail that someone could correct. It meant the theatre, the mirror, the next role and the next standard I had to reach. I was good at it. I was also tired in a way I did not have words for.

Today, movement means being present in my body.

My body has carried me through many versions of myself: the little girl in Warsaw who danced for every visitor, the student who believed that being the best was the safest place to be, the professional ballerina, the woman who struggled, the woman who changed. And the woman who is still changing.

Why a website now

For a long time, my work lived in many places. Photographs on Instagram. Collaborations with photographers in Paris, Warsaw, Lyon, Málaga. Stories I told friends but never wrote down. This website brings them together. Here you can see my photographic work and the artists I create it with, read about my life in ballet, and follow what I am building next.

I made one decision about this site before anything else: it should tell the truth. A finished photograph can look calm and effortless, even when it took many attempts, a cold morning and a lot of doubt. I love beauty, but I don’t want to use beauty to hide the real story. So in this Journal I will write about both: the image, and what is behind it.

What I want to share

Many people have dreamed of becoming ballerinas. Ballet can represent lightness, grace and beauty. But it also holds discipline, strength and challenge. I would like to open a small door into that world for people who never trained as dancers, and for those who trained once and stopped.

Not to turn anyone into a ballerina. One session will not make you a ballerina, and I would never promise that. But a few gentle minutes of movement, done often, can change how you feel, how you breathe and how you stand in your own body. That is what I am preparing, and you can join the list on the Move page if you would like to try it with me.

Come back to yourself

The line at the top of this site is “Come back to yourself.” For me it means: look inside. Take care of your mind, your body and your soul together. Don’t compare yourself with anyone else. Listen to yourself.

I am not leaving the ballerina behind. I am learning how to carry her differently.

Thank you for being here at the beginning.

Zuza