royal ballet

Description

In this interview, Dame Ninette de Valois, in her nineties, talks about her early life as a dancer, her involvement with Ballets Russes and the founding of the Royal Ballet. She speaks about how she first became interested in dance, surprising herself, being a shy person, by insisting on dancing an Irish gig at a party at age seven. She had been taught the gig by 'a peasant' on her father's estate. She then began once a week classes when the family moved to Kent, with the redoubtable Mrs Wordworth being the first to spot her talent. Dame Ninette talks of going to see Anna Pavlova perform 'The Dying Swan' and noting down every movement to be able to perform it herself in a company called 'The Wonder Children', a touring company in which she was called 'The Miniature Pavlova'. Of course what was particularly interesting about de Valois's early career was her direct contact with Serge de Diaghilev and Ballets Russes, where she worked as a dancer for a period of two years in the early twenties. She identifies this experience as a completely formative influence on her and so, by extension, on the Royal Ballet. She has wonderful little anecdotes to tell of this period, which reveal, as much as anything, her own character. She mentions being for a year 'put in charge' of Alicia Markova, as a kind of 'adopted mother', saying 'she was a dear little girl ... very easy to handle'! She goes on to say 'Diaghilev was mad on her and determined to make a ballerina of her'. Dame Ninette reveals some of her own physical difficulties as a dancer, mainly problems with her back stemming from undiagnosed infantile paralysis. It was such issues which led her to decide to move into teaching and choreography. Naturally she speaks at length about the founding of ballet in England, having suggested the idea to Lilian Baylis, the manager of the Old Vic. Of taking Frederick Ashton as choreographer and Markova as ballerina. Of seeing Margot Fonteyn for the first time and of spotting other talent. Of the evolution of the English style of ballet and of her own work as a choreographer. And of Rudolph Nureyev 'joining' the company. I love de Valois's no nonsense commonsense and self-deprecating modesty. She will not accept compliments and would only admit that, as a dancer, her 'eyes and feet weren't bad'. The interviewer is more than a bit confrontational, trying I guess to get a reaction for the sake of ratings from this notoriously difficult director of the Royal Ballet. De Valois deflects this wonderfully, ducking being described as 'being in charge' with 'guiding people', and being labelled as 'a mad Irish woman' with 'I don't mind being mad'. A lovely interview -- I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. By the way, I was surprised to hear Dame Ninette say friends and relations use it still use her given name, Edris Stannus, suggesting she sees herself in a life other than the ballet.