Jonathan Cope (ballet dancer)
By Colin Brennan for The Financial Times

Jonathan Cope, 39, the Royal Ballet's leading male dancer, has performed in all the main roles of the repertoire and recently danced before the Queen in a jubilee celebration at Covent Garden. Here are his five greatest ballet dancers.
Sylvie Guillem
The French ballerina, now my regular partner, terrified me at first. Hardly speaking in rehearsals, she took my hand as we went on stage saying just one word: "calm". It was a wonderful performance. God gave her a remarkable body but the way she uses it and her technique makes her unique.

The FT clunky URLs have defeated me again - it's a case of Cut and paste folks and this article will only be around for a week from publication

http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=020817000295&query=
Ballet&vsc_appId=quickSearch&offset=40&resultsToShow=10&vsc_
subjectConcept=&vsc_companyConcept=&state=More&vsc_p ublicationGroups=TOPWFT&searchCat=-1

<small>[ 08-23-2002, 08:58: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

From the list of Jonathan Cope's "five greatest ballet dancers":

What a statement! What about Bruhn, Vasiliev, Villela, among others? There were plenty of male dancers before Nureyev who excited the audience as much as, if not more than, their partners did. The power of defection!

I do agree with his other statements about Nureyev, though.

I am surprised he didn't mention Margot Fonteyn - surely she was instrumental is helping to make the Royal Ballet the first rank company it was/is. And she was so important for so long.

Yes, the rest of what he said about Nureyev was valid. What he said about Anthony Dowell almost seemed as if it was something he felt obliged to put in. I'm surprised that he said he "didn't rival Nureyev or Baryshnikov technically." I always felt he was technically superior to Nureyev -- he just didn't present his technique in a flashy way. I thought he was a much more reliable technician, and a cleaner one.

Yes, I agree - Dowell was much better technically than Nureyev. Nureyev's technique showed the effects of starting fairly late, and a much more haphazard schooling.

Nureyev's charisma was almost sensual - visceral - pantherine, while Dowell was charismatic in a much more serene way.

Some dancers give the impression that they are great because they can do something as difficult as ballet so easily; others, such as Dowell, simply make ballet look like something that's easy to do. I think the latter type of dancer is very rare.

Maybe to do with the dancers he was exposed to as well? Cope spent his whole life at the RB school and company, maybe he didn't have much opportunity to see Bruhn, Villela, etc, etc.

<small>[ 08-24-2002, 10:47: Message edited by: sylvia ]</small>

Good point, Sylvia. There is so little footage available and the dancers are very focused on what tools they need to do the precise job. He probably hasn't and we can't expect him to have...

If that were the case, then he shouldn't make such a statement about dancers he hasn't been exposed to. But maybe his statement was edited.

<small>[ 08-24-2002, 17:52: Message edited by: djb ]</small>