Movement means freedom

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