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Ballerina, choreographer, globetrotter Sonja Lapatanov (1948) spent a half century at the National Theatre in Belgrade as an outstanding soloist. She has performed with equal success in both ballets and operas in the current repertoire. Apart from this, as a qualified choreographer and pedagogue educated in Moscow and New York she has created choreographies for more than 120 performances, TV programmes and films, including both domestic and foreign productions. Sonja stopped dancing on the tips of her toes long ago, and is presently engaged in teaching and choreography. Her true passion, however, is that she absolutely loves to travel. She has visited more than 100 countries on four continents, and has probably used every means of available travel; by ship, steamboat, canoe, junk, train, airplane, bus, balloon, dirigible, horseback and camel. She has touched the ruins of ancient civilisations, met people of all colours and creeds, but not only people; she has also had encounters with gorillas, alligators, giant turtles and boa constrictors. She has climbed the Himalayas and dived into the Pacific. In short, she has turned what is already a wonderful artist’s life into an even more exciting and enriching experience.
- Distant lands attract you. Is this just curiosity or has your uncommon family origin played a role in this?
- It’s probably a little bit of both. My soul is as large as the Russian steppe. I always search for a space of some sort. I am a child of émigrés. On my paternal side, my grandparents are Russians from Ukraine. They came to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from Odessa in 1921. My grandpa was a military doctor, which is why they lived in many places across Yugoslavia before they finally settled in Belgrade. My mother Johanna-Maria fled Berlin before the war’s turmoil arrived to the German capital, and came to Athens, where she met my father Nikolai, who was then a war prisoner. Digging through my roots, I also discovered that I am part Tartar (which I suspected because of these horses constantly running through my mind), but I am also part Bulgarian and French, which again didn’t surprise me because my mother, the German, was a beautiful dark young woman with a mane of black hair and large dark eyes. Hence my ancestors are calling me from many sides of the world. For instance, my great love is Africa, and it so happens that my grandma Frida was a missionary who lived in Namibia and Cape Town when these areas were German colonies.
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- How do you choose your destinations?
- Sometimes they are suggested to me, and sometimes we suggest a destination to our tour operator. I have noticed that the world is shrinking. I have already seen many places and don’t have the financial resources to visit these places twice, although I would like to visit Burma, Uganda, and Tahiti again… I often choose a destination after hearing about it in a movie, a performance or reading about it in literature. Nušić’s Mrs. Minister (Minster’s Wife) ruined me. An honourary consul of Nicaragua appears in this play, and after viewing this play I absolutely had to see the country. Along with Nicaragua, I had to see all of Central America, which is far from a safe region. Thank God, however, nothing happened to us during out visit, and I also visited Mexico and saw the great ruins of the Mayan culture.
- What impressed you the most from these ancient civilizations?
- The culture of Indonesia was the most attractive to me because it blends the cultures of China and India. Also quite magnificent is the ancient culture of the Khmers, and then there is Burma. I was also fascinated with Japan. I had always imagined it to be a sterile country where everything had its place and everything happens on time. However, it is an extremely charming country. The whole of Japan is like a little geisha. I had the good fortune to get lost in the Japanese underground and I thus skipped the regular tourist routes and spent the whole day at the market watching sumo- wrestlers. I had a gorgeous time.
- You have published a book about your travels? |
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- Every country leaves its mark on me and I decided to write about this. It was a great pleasure for me to write this book as it was an escape from reality…as I wrote, there I was again traveling. I have already published the book In the skirts of the Himalayas, which is among the most widely read books published by Deretan publishers. They are currently publishing my book The Paradise Islands. I am preparing the book The Cradle of Mankind dedicated to my favourite continent Africa.
- What islands are paradise?
- These are different islands, a small continent dispersed throughout the world. My personal paradise islands are French Polynesia, which really are a paradise on earth. My paradise island is also Papua New Guinea, a large island on which one goes back to a primitive prehistoric society. Borneo is an island with a magnificent tropical forest that, unfortunately, man destroys day after day. I especially love Easter Island, which I visited a month ago. It is 4,000 kilometres far from the land, it is triangular in shape, and has its own life and is known by the statues Moai made of volcano tuff that weighing from five to 80 tonnes and are up to 12 meteres high. Just a cap on the head of a statue can weigh eight tonnes. Moai make me think that Erich von Däniken was right, because I think it is simply impossible to make these statues without a wheel and without mechanisation. As if they had been brought from another planet. There are several versions about the origin of these statues, and being a lover of science fiction, I fancy the version that involves extraterrestrials. The world is full of wonders and this is another challenging mystery. On the border between Bolivia and Peru lies Lake Titicaca, which means “yellow cat”. The lake really has a catlike shape, but this fact can only be seen from an altitude of at least an altitude of five thousand metres. How they could have known that the lake has a catlike shape?
- Where was the most dangerous place you have visited?
- The Himalayas. Dangerous for life. I went to the Himalayas in 2002, and this year I went to the Himalayan region and both times I had problems with my health. I climbed to 5,220 metres and suddenly I had a strong desire to sleep. What was I doing there? Climbing to see the whole world. It is an unending struggle between man and nature.
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- Where was the most peaceful place you have visited, where people were the most tranquil and the most pleased with life?
- In French Polynesia, on Tahiti. They wondered at our nervousness and screaming, and they were constantly calming us down. It is cheerful, for instance, in Senegal, where people live for parties and fun. They even have fun during their funeral ceremonies. It seems that people are the happiest when they have the least.
- Where do you eat the best food?
- Wherever French cuisine has left its flavour. But I ate well on cruises in Chile and Argentine. I also like the Chinese kitchen. I always eat well in Singapore where they cook everything – from shellfish to hen legs – in soy sauce and have superb soups and broths with rice noodles. I also ate well in Malaysia and in Vietnam, where they cook the famous soup pho, a hot fish and meat soup with vegetables, and very small peppers. It is served in large portions for two persons, and one soup is sufficient to keep you going all day long.
- Is there any encounter that you remember with pleasure?
- I like animals very much. In Uganda we climbed to the forest, where the mountain gorillas live. We saw a group with one male and scores of females. They live in families. Fortunately, the male was a so-called Silverback, a rare example of a huge gorilla who stands at over two metres tall. We came close to the animals and I was so happy and taking photos. At one point, probably because I was so excited, I fell on my back and remained sitting while tears rolled down my face.
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The huge gorilla turned around, came close to me and growled, and a ranger who was escorting us growled back in the same way. The gorilla calmed down but continued to look at me. Our eyes met and I still remember those large warm eyes.
- What should a globetrotter pack in a suitcase?
- First of all, good will and patience. Of course, one should always take medicine and money. As regards things – the less, the better. In group travel, it is important not to mix conformists and adventurers. There are always those who like to sunbathe next to swimming pools, which for adventurers seems boring beyond endurance. The important decision is to set out on a voyage in the first place. This is the wisest and best spent money. It shouldn’t be that expensive either. To travel to Egypt or Tunisia, for example, doesn’t cost a lot. And travelling is a miracle.
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