News — LOS ANGELES (Dec. 4, 2024) -- Ballet dancer Marat Daukayev is back en pointe after a near-fatal heart attack. This week, for the second time since his heart scare, Daukayev and his wife are putting the final touches on a production of “The Nutcracker” that will feature more than 100 of their ballet students. It will be performed this coming weekend.
Daukayev is a beloved ballet teacher and the owner of Los Angeles-based Marat Daukayev School of Ballet with his wife of 28 years, Pamela. Daukayev also is known around the world for his 20-year career as a leading male dancer in numerous international ballet tours.
Outwardly, the Russian-born dancer seemed the picture of good health. Though he was managing high blood pressure under the care of an interventional cardiologist, Daukayev said he felt healthy and showed no signs of slowing down.
So, it was a surprise in the early morning of Feb. 6, 2023, when an episode of severe chest pain sent him racing to the Cedars-Sinai Emergency Department. There, he was evaluated by cardiologist who immediately whisked Daukayev to the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory in the where Daukayev received two lifesaving stents. A week later, when Daukayev’s electrical heart function became unstable, he returned to the cath lab for a third stent.
“If he came in even two or three hours later, things could be very different,” Nakamura said. “It is very fortunate that he came to us just in time.”
After his hospitalization, Daukayev returned home and adhered closely to doctors’ instructions, walking daily and eating healthfully. Just four weeks later, he was back at his dance studio, teaching daily. By August, when rehearsals began for his studio’s annual production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's “The Nutcracker Suite,” he was fully recovered.
“Marat has made tremendous progress,” Nakamura said. “This is a major success story for the treatment of a heart attack.”
Today, Daukayev reflects on his health journey and says that it’s a strange thing when the body you count on every day of your life suddenly stops working.
“My whole life’s training has been to make the body do the impossible,” he said. “But suddenly, I was forced to put my body completely and fully in someone else’s hands.”
Daukayev will lead four “Nutcracker” performances on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 at California State University Los Angeles’ The Luckman Theater. Daukayev plans to dance alongside 105 ballet students who have waited all year for this annual performance.
“I am so lucky,” Daukayev said, “and I feel so alive.”
To purchase tickets for “The Nutcracker” this weekend, visit .
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