Patricia Ruanne, a conversation with a ballet mistress in an interview with Bill Bissell
Introduction o
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Patricia Ruanne is concerned with the abiding aesthetic and ethical values that constitute ballet as an art form. In this world, artistic values are informed by aesthetics as well as ethics. Her impressive report as a dance artist-as performer, coach, ballet mistress, répétiteur-has yielded a marvelous career. Ruanne's enounce estimation of the European ballet scene is framed by her early years spent in the Royal Ballet schools and companies, the 1960s through the early 1980s-a duration marked by prolific creativity and strong performing personalities-as well as by her long and formative working connection with Rudolf Nureyev.
Patricia Ruanne's dance pedigree was attained at England's Royal Ballet schools at White Lodge and Baron's Court. Her career ranges over an impressive roster of performing due that includes contracts with the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet Touring companies, London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), and many guest appearances on numerous projects and tours, some of which were gathered together as vehicles for Nureyev. A turning point in Ruanne's career as a dancer came when Nureyev selected her to generate the role of Juliet in his landmark production of Romeo and Juliet. 2002 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of this production, which was premiered by the London Festival Ballet at the Coliseum on 2 June 1977.
Among other roles she created in expanding to Juliet was the female lead in Ronald Hynd's The Sanguine Fan for London Festival Ballet in 1976. Ruanne retired from performing in 1983 and in her last season received an Olivier nomination for her portrayal of Tatiana in John Cranko's Onegin with London Festival Ballet-her first execution in that ballet. From 1983-85, she was ballet mistress for Lfb and, bringing history full circle, is currently working with the Enb on a revival of Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet in a production that will receive its first execution on the company's spring tour in Liverpool on 5 March 2002.
When Nureyev assumed the artistic direction of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1983, Ruanne followed him there in 1986 to come to be a Ballet Mistress. While the decade that followed in Paris, Ruanne became responsible for restaging many productions of his ballets on numerous companies colse to the world. Since leaving the Paris Opera in 1996, Ruanne has been engaged throughout Europe restaging the works of Kenneth MacMillian, while also remaining one of the significant artistic caretakers of Rudolf Nureyev's choreographic body of work. From 1999-2001, Ruanne was acting director of the ballet business for the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy.
The first part of this conversation considers Ruanne's pro development as a dancer, beginning with the Royal Ballet Touring business under the direction of John Field and lasting up through her recently held position as Direttore del Corpo di Ballo at La Scala. The second part of the conversation focuses on Ruanne's work with Rudolf Nureyev. Her perspective supports the need for new significant attentiveness to Nureyev's versions of ballet classics such as Swan Lake, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, and Sleeping Beauty. Ruanne astutely makes the case that these works need and deserve to be documented and preserved. Evidence that Nureyev's Don Quixote "has not been bettered," in Ruanne's estimation, is provided by major restagings in Spring 2002 at both the Royal Ballet in London and the Paris Opera Ballet.
This interview by Bill Bissell, took place on 2 March 2001, at the Palais Garnier in Paris, where Ruanne was engaged with the restaging of Kenneth MacMillan's Manon for the Paris Opera Ballet. Subsequent interviewing took place While the summer of 2001. Bill Bissell, who interviewed Ruanne, is director of Dance enlarge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The complete interview can be found on http://www.dancemasters-jahn-ruanne.com and was submitted by Frederic Jahn
Part 1: retention Dance
Bill Bissell: I've unquestionably read your name in publications over the years, but being an American, I suppose I viewed you as part of a European community that I didn't ever unquestionably feel live or gain exposure to. For all the closeness of the dance world there is also a geographic set of boundaries that isolate us. However, you did dance in the United States and I'm wondering if you could begin by talking about the circumstances of those visits?
Ms. Ruanne: My first guest appearances in the United States were in Tulsa and Hawaii, and I mean it was just unquestionably great fun. And then when Rudolf had created Romeo and Juliet for London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), we went to America to the Metropolitan Opera House and also to Washington. So, that was my big official step into America, which was terrific-it was a great success for the business especially since it had always been the Royal Ballet's territory. We went on Rudolf's back because he was the pull of the production, which was fairly sensational.
Bb: Does New York hold the same sort of seductive powers over dancers in European companies that it has on U. S.-based companies?
Ms. Ruanne: I think everybody in this business is particularly absorbed into the image of New York being the pinnacle-that if you can make it in New York you've made it professionally. But I'm not sure that everybody in Europe has quite the realization of how foremost this feel can be. Though I think dancers are aware that the wider the audience they reach the better it is for them as artists, I'm still not determined that they comprehend just how crucial it is and how stimulating it is to touch a distinct public.
Bb: In looking at the trajectory of your career, how would you collate the choices that helped to define you as an artist?
Ms. Ruanne: All of my work in my pro life as a dancer was based in England where I started with the Royal Ballet. All I did was cross the river to Festival Ballet, which was the same thing but different. I've worked all over the world, but I needed a home. I needed a company. I did do lots of guest performances, but I never really, unquestionably enjoyed that life. I was never happy with the guest circuit like determined dancers. I couldn't bear being tossed into a production and being surrounded by people who you don't unquestionably know as colleagues. You don't have a lot of time to work with them or with each other on the production. You are just inserted into something, and I found that deeply unsatisfactory. Any execution is the pulling together of a lot of people. It's not just the star. And I was only comfortable when I was with a group of people that I knew and there's an tremendous gift that comes from feeling everybody on the stage. So, my whole background was in Royal Ballet, the touring group of the Royal Ballet and then I had the demented delight with working with Ben Stevenson at Festival Ballet and it was just wonderful.
Bb: What about your career as a coach and ballet mistress, how did that develop?
Ms. Ruanne: I was always interested in working with dancers. I used to coach at Festival Ballet in the later years when I was still performing and I loved it. I loved working with the young adults and then looking their performance. It's such a astonishing feeling looking people understand and develop. But I don't know that I would have had the courage to put myself send as a ballet mistress or somebody who did it as a profession. But Rudolf saw it, and he said, "Well, just come and just shut up and just do it." So, I worked with him for many years, you know, taking rehearsals and all the rest of it. And my learning process continued for a long, long time after I stopped dancing because it's a distinct skill to teach and coach dancers. You come to be a distinct type of transmitter. So, I think that he, in the end, inevitably had the greatest sway on the direction I went after I stopped performing.
With coaching all you can do is to help understanding. If the physical element has not yet totally kicked in, that's not so important, as long as the mind understands what's needed because it may be that in two years time the physical part will happen automatically-as long as the dancer understands how it must be, what it is they should be searching for in the role. That's what they are working towards and that's the ideal: that they understand how to get to that point of knowing what the quest is about. If they haven't got it quite yet that's not something the group necessarily is going to know or recognize. It's a degree of perfection that we should be aware of, and that dancers should be aware of, which is why I so often hear dancers say "that's not how I wanted it, not the way I want it, it's not why I rehearsed it, it didn't come out." Dancers are so often disappointed when they know that they understand what they're supposed to do, but they don't have all of it under operate yet.
Coaching is not just about technical issues however, it is also about sensibility. The role of coaching is unquestionably transmitting. The big issue here is: you can send all your life, but you have to be received by the listener-you can't force whatever to switch on their radios.
Bb: Were there other personal role models or other people that influenced you while you were dancing or when you began coaching and teaching?
Ms. Ruanne: Artists certainly-obviously Fonteyn. The generation we had then-performers we learned from just by watching-has no parallel today. In fact today's generation very often feels artistically feeble in comparison. There was a richness-a tapestry of such richness that it's hard to prestige today because they were all extremely individual. I mean that was the most astonishing fertile field to look at and to admire and to try to emulate. You could never be like those people and learn all of what they were passing on. They were all just astonishing for us-Svetlana Berisova, Merle Park, Beryl Grey, Lynne Seymour, Antoinette Sibley.
I was very fortunate that I was in the touring business of the Royal Ballet, directed by John Field. He had a very clear passion. He believed that you shouldn't wait. He believed in developing dancers while they were young enough not to be frightened, not to put too many obstacles in their own minds against themselves. So, we were all thrown into the deep end at very early age, and I think that that was also tremendous gift that you didn't have to wait seven or eight years before you got your first role-it was roughly immediate. And that practical feel is inevitably so precious. In all that generation I think I prestige John, particularly, for helping me understand and get ahead with my dance career. I think that his first great love was for the theater; this was what was foremost to him, and he was right. In some of those slight towns in the north of England they had never seen a dancer; it was the kind of environment where Billy Elliot [the fictional character in the up-to-date film of the same name] was raised. But the English do have a very strong theatrical tradition. What we seemed to touch as dancers was the public's sense of theater. I realized that what we were doing in dance-in a way-was telling a story. If you do it through dance, though, it still needed to speak to you in that sort of report or storytelling way. And this view, which John held to so firmly, was a tremendous sway on me and other dancers because it gave us an additional one handle on what we were doing on stage. What became foremost to me was the credibility of the character, the report element that we could find in the movement that audiences could communicate to. There is a slight bit of actor in all of us, I guess, and that was the thing that I became most passionate about. I was never very comfortable in abstract pieces-though I did not hate them-but I loved the roles where I could find a personality and make people believe in that person. And so John Field was very influential in this sense on my development.
John was the only director I knew on terms well enough to talk to and understand his point of view and concept processes-or purpose-as a director. With de Valois I never had this kind of familiarity-she was already the great woman and I was far too young to have had any group feel with her. Beryl Grey at Festival Ballet was astonishing and she was an perfect director, but at the same time she wasn't a someone with whom you would discuss the why and wherefore of directing a business or the problems that come with it. John was more forthcoming. And interestingly, he always believed I should direct. He concept I was director material, whatever that means, when I was still dancing. So inevitably there were conversations about the way he saw things and how he felt about this or that and how he concept dancers should be taken care of. But I think it's futile information in the abstract because it depends on where you are and what you are doing. I think if you were directing a business where you have an tremendous backup aid and you have an administrator who can take part of the load, then maybe one could take some delight from directing a ballet company. I can't talk to you about being a director of a business because I'm unquestionably a jack-of-all-trades. I suppose I'm fortunate in the sense that over the years I have been exposed to a lot of people who work for dance companies and I've always been interested in how everybody else functions within our environment, either a lighting man or the wardrobe mistress-whomever.
Bb: Do distinctions remain in the middle of companies like the Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, or La Scala?
Ms. Ruanne: I don't think there are many differences. I know there was a duration when you could tell a French dancer before they even danced. An English dancer had the same impact. I think, for a start, dancers have come to be so much more gymnastic. The whole recipe has altered. Our perception of the perfect physique has altered. Male dancers tended in the past to be blocky and now, there is a determined androgyny that is part of the picture. Many male dancers have legs and feet that could be those of a girl. This physical look is always in the process of altering. physical convert is very organic to the art form, I think. Tastes change, ideas change, there are elements that can be bred, but I am roughly determined that in ten years it will all convert again.
Bb: Are there things that are being lost?
Ms. Ruanne: Yes, to a determined degree things will be lost. For example, you have a scenario now that is astonishing. There are male ballet dancers who say quite openly they have no interest in partnering. Interestingly, however, you probably can have a fairly good career without ever having to have to pick up a girl and have a strain on your shoulder. In the past, it was a quiz, of pride, on both accounts. A guy wanted to be known and recognized as an perfect partner, not just as an perfect dancer, and one of the things that every girl dreaded hearing was that she is difficult to partner. Because you are part of a team one of the nicest parts of being a dancer is to find a kind of chemistry with someone. With good partnering it's roughly like your heartbeat stops as you pick up each other's rhythm. It's the most perfect feeling that exists when it happens, which is not every time, even with a partner with whom you dance together regularly. I rather regret these guys that don't know how lovely it can be to work together with somebody, but it's their selection and it's not whatever that you can alter. And, in a sense, I can sympathize. It's probably right that their knees will last much longer if they are not carrying a ballerina colse to every day. All I know is that one witnesses lots of change. At this duration of time the slightly gymnastic, slightly cool, uncommitted element is what the group requires and that's what's most deserved. I think the Royal Ballet, partly because of the heritage repertory that they retain, remains the most satisfying business in Europe. There is still a great point attached to the credibility of the story that their ballets are telling and the personality of the work when the dancers are on stage. That's rather more difficult to get in other companies because it's not part of their tradition, nor part of their advent to maintaining business identity.
Bb: I'm wondering if you can describe, even generally, the differences in the middle of the generation of dancers that you were a part of when you were performing, and dancers today. What does a career look like today that is distinct than, say, in the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s?
Ms. Ruanne: This is a difficult one. I see their lives as being much easier in terms of what surrounds them, in terms of their working conditions. I don't know that there is the same hunger, but then every generation says that. everybody says, "Well, it wasn't like this in my day." What I do observation most is there is very little, or there is a very modest, interest in the theater. Dancers don't seem to care about the people who are colse to them. They seem very isolated in what they do.
You hear dancers screaming at people from wardrobe about dresses. But a dancer can't get on stage without the someone that's being screamed at. To me it's a lack of respect for the work of all the people who prepare for your performance. They're completely unseen, yet they're magicians sometimes. The rehearsals on stage aren't just for the dancers. They are also for the technical crew. They're also for the lighting people. They're also for your dressers to learn just how long there is for that quick convert and if it doesn't work the first time that is how they will learn what to do for second time. This lack of community within the theater setting among dancers is something I've noticed very much in Europe. It doesn't happen in other companies maybe where the society isn't as big. You know you go to the Finland National Ballet, which is a small company, and the people who dye your shoes are in the same building: to get by them you have to go through the hall where wardrobe is making your costume. Inevitably, you build up an entirely differently rapport because the people you see and you work with are much more part of the same world. Our advantage within the touring business was after the execution there'd be one pub that was still open, which was next door to the stage door and probably the selection was in the middle of a Greek or Chinese restaurant. In the course of things you'd find yourself with the tech crew or with musicians from the orchestra. There was an entirely distinct understanding of each other's work because it's not potential to sit opposite a lighting man and not begin to discuss-at some point-the problems of lighting dance. And either you intend to learn or not, you do by feel and knowing this other participant in your dance is just an additional one human being with a job.
We're in an extremely brittle profession, dance and cultural work doesn't keep people alive. It doesn't serve a function except from an artistic and esthetic point of view. The only way for the business to survive, in my mind, is to hire and fire. That sounds awfully brutal, but it's the truth. If somebody isn't pulling their weight or if somebody has lost the force and the desire to dance or participate fully in the life of the theater no matter what their job, then do something else. It's not a profession for the faint-hearted. This applies to any big funded European house where the people have a permanent contract, as opposed to having a contract that is renewed each year by the artistic administration.
I would dream it's getting harder and harder to get a job. It has come to be far more competitive than it was hundreds of years ago when I started to dance. There is less help and less funding. I probably would have never been able to be a dancer today. When I started training the local county council paid my dance fees. My parents couldn't afford to send me to discontinue in the Royal Ballet School. I was given a tremendous grant, which paid all my fees. Today, that's no longer potential unless you can get a scholarship and, even then, scholarships are not usually extensive so obviously dancers have much more of a question getting into a company.
You know, the image of what's required to be a dancer in a pro classical business has somehow fallen apart. I dream it's distinct in America because there are so many companies in the States compared with Europe. I don't know if they have difficulties in surviving or not, but if you think about the amount of companies that exist in Europe you don't stand half the opportunity of landing a job over here compared with the States. You have big companies with big reputations in Europe, and therefore they are very hard to get into-you know, they're the "national guardians" of classical ballet and all the rest of it. And though the doors are more open and it should be easier with the European Community, I don't think it is. I think there are more dancers but not necessarily any more jobs.
Bb: In today's dance world there is concern with "career transition" for dancers after they stop performing. Can you point to whatever that could have been more helpful in preparation you for your career roles as coach, ballet mistress, or business director? Can you recommend some ways that companies could help dancers better prepare for retirement from the stage?
Ms. Ruanne: Dancers in England subscribe to the Dancers' Resettlement Fund which, as its title implies, helps to fund dancers while they are retraining or learning for an additional one profession. It has been in existence for many years and is much accessed with great success. Some European houses try to help place dancers into other roles within the system such as technical or administrative. Of course these houses furnish very extensive pensions upon retirement, which is why dancers stay put until the bitter end and in many cases have no urgent financial need for further employment.
I personally did not passage the Drf, since as Rudolf pushed me off the bridge, as it were, and the whole process seemed inevitable. Also, my conversations with mentors like John Field at the Royal Ballet Touring Company-although held when thoughts of retirement were still in the distant future-took root and I learned about other aspects of the business by osmosis. You don't comprehend what you know until you're called upon.
I think most companies are as helpful as potential with regard to giving dancers time off in order to ease the transition. However, I do believe that it is the dancer's responsibility to give serious concept to what avenue they wish to pursue in the future, after they stop dancing. The business has already maintained them in their chosen profession, and one encounters a surprising amount of dancers who assume that the business will furnish them with ideas about what comes next in their lives.
Bb: What do you think contributes to forming a good ballet artistic director in today's dance world?
Ms. Ruanne: Artistic direction-in whatever capacity-is about accepting responsibility for a business and the satellite departments that are crucial to its function and the group it serves. On the grassroots level, an artistic director's role is a caretaker's job and I presuppose that this basic part of the job report becomes more and more difficult to maintain, not least because there are far more eggs in one's basket now. Any business that requires a board of directors, alongside the artistic, administrative, and financial directors, will inevitably take longer to get to the artistic point.
Ideally, the buck should stop at the artistic director's desk. Yet is it unquestionably fair to make one someone publicly responsible for what may have been a corporate decision-often entailing many compromises? maybe we should accept that an artistic director today can no longer enjoy the luxury of being merely well marvelous and experienced within the theatrical environment. Given the specialized zones of sway of the board members in most companies, it's probably vital to have at least a working knowledge of their expertise as well. This may facilitate a balance of power in the sense that the artistic director would have some credibility and authority within the areas of marketing, fund raising, accounting, etc., and might stand a better opportunity of having the last word on artistic matters
Part 2 Rudolf Nureyev and the Passion for Work submitted by Frederic Jahn and interviewed by Bill Bissell at, www.dancemasters-jahn-ruanne.com
Nureyev MacMillan the Royal Ballet, the Paris Opera, La Scala, Milan, Interview With Patricia Ruanne
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