Nino Ramishvili sits in an antique armchair and smiles... with her usual smile, by which we always recognise her. She is elegant, graceful, courtly in posture; her manners reveal her noble origin. Her exquisite gestures and conversation are reminiscent of bygone epochs.

Her smile is charming and modest at the same time. It radiates warmth, yet maintains some distance between you and the legend. Will I be able to approach this legend...

The legend of  Nino Ramishvili has always been with us - a celebration, a symbol of beauty and freedom, a door from objective reality to the realm of dreams.

But legends too have private and often hard lives, different from the lives of ordinary mortals. We cannot exist without gleaming earthly light, music, stage, success and applause. We are enslaved by vanity and haunted by hollow ambitions.

Yet we cannot survive without legends which we need to cherish and idealise, or to criticise and gossip about. We need our own personal legends.

The legends, however, have their own stories to tell...

Iliko Sukhishvili and Nino Ramishvili met at the opera theatre, at the end of the 20’s. The graceful and stately Nino and the handsome and agile Iliko. It was, perhaps, inevitable that  these two should meet. Their passion for and devotion to dancing brought this beautiful couple together as partners, as husband and wife, and as creators of the legendary dance company..

Nino Ramishvili, the daughter of a famous Menshevik Shalva Ramishvili... the 1930s...numerous arrests and exiles...permanent fear. But Iliko’s dancing fascinated Stalin and he enjoyed the "Great Chief’s" admiration and special favour.

As time passed, the dream of creating their own company never left Iliko and Nino and in 1944 the Georgian State Company of Folk Dance was formed. In the first few years, the Company had no hall of their own and had to wander around. They would move from stage to stage as they rehearsed and continued to exist without salaries and help. There were cases when during rehearsals dancers fainted from hunger. They, however, did not lose heart and continued to work with dedication, passion and fanatical zeal, and they endured.

Then came tours. First in Georgia, then in Russia and in almost all the republics and major cities of the Soviet Union, then abroad. They won international acclaim, and it continues to this day.

"The eighth wonder of the world", "Fantastic! Fiery! Electric!", "A storm on the stage", "Fantastic artistic vigour, incredible vivacity of movement", "There is poetry and fiery passion", "Exhilarating virtuosity", reported the western press about them.

This was a ballet, born of a rich tradition of Georgian choreographic folklore in unity with Soliko Virsaladze’s unique scenography and costume design. Yet, Iliko Sukhishvili’s creative individuality and complete political indifference created many obstacles on his way. As the communists opposed any kind of individualism and considered that the "folk character" was the main aesthetic virtue of art, Iliko Sukhishvili had to find a way out. He had to renounce his authorship and pursue everything as only folk arts. Thus, instead of calling the troupe the Georgia ballet, it was called the State Folk Dance Company.

"The Suhkishvilis" as the company is popularly known in Georgia not only became an unofficial ambassador of their country to the entire world, but to many ‘closed’ generations of Georgians they brought progress and fresh air.

 Today,  Tengiz Sukhisvili, Iliko and Nino’s son is the Arts Manager and head of the company. It is sad, that like the rest of the country, the Sukhishvili company too is experiencing many hardships...  Still, the legend continues.

As we were saying our good-byes, one of our phones rang. "That's an interesting phone you have there", said Nino Ramishvili.

Life is strange. When she was not yet a legend, this is exactly the type of phone one would have expected her to have.

M.V.