Daniela Reiss

Underground Ballet

When fans of the football club of Beitar Jerusalem make their way to Teddy Stadium, they hardly ever notice Nadia as she enters and makes her way to a classical ballet studio beneath the bleachers. The ceiling trembles, the cheering fills the room, but the studio remains isolated from Jerusalem's reality. A decade ago Nadia and her mother, Nina Timofeyeva, a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet, left Moscow for Jerusalem and set up the studio. It was a professional suicide. Ballet and football make for a surrealistic combination.