Sylvie Guillem interviews

Emma Pegler · **Posted:** Thu Aug 02, 2001 8:12 am

<img src="http://images.thisislondon.com/linked/hottickets/theatre/sylvieguillem_200x125.jpg" alt="" />

The introspective Guillem, nick-named "Madame Non" by Anthony Dowell, talks fairly openly, it would seem, to Luke Jennings of the Evening Standard. What we get with newspapers half the size of the Times, Guardian, Observer etc...(you know what I mean..) is details of the love life of the subject matter.

Taming of a ballet brat
by Luke Jennings

Quote:

In the Royal Opera House's star dressing room, Sylvie Guillem's boyfriend, Gilles Tapie, is suffering the indescribable agonies of a Frenchman who can't find his sunglasses. As he paces, desolate, the Ètoile watches impassively from her chair. Then a faint smile touches her pale features and a long index finger begins to uncoil. Joint by joint, the finger extends, tautens, and hyperextends - a perfect Bonsai-scale ballet performance. "La!" says Guillem, and indeed there are the shades, all but invisible in the folds of a discarded black T-shirt.

read on...

[ 24 November 2003, 02:28 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]

Emma Pegler · **Posted:** Fri Aug 03, 2001 4:27 am

Time for a change of heart BY DEBRA CRAINE <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Giselle has always left Sylvie Guillem dissatisfied. But now she hopes her own version will put things right In 1988 Rudolf Nureyev returned to the Royal Ballet to dance Albrecht, a historic reunion to mark his 50th birthday. But it was his Parisian Giselle who stole the limelight that night. Covent Garden was captivated by the virtuosity and charisma of Nureyev’s young protégée. Within a year she had left him — and the Paris Opera Ballet — and decamped to London, the most exciting new arrival at the Royal Ballet since Nureyev himself. The young lady was, of course, Sylvie Guillem. And many more Giselles were to follow in her illustrious career. But no matter where the production, no matter how wonderful her performance, Guillem was not happy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <A HREF="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,62-2001264173,00.html" TARGET=_blank>more...</A>

Emma Pegler · **Posted:** Fri Aug 03, 2001 4:31 am

New blood for an old ballet The ballerina Sylvie Guillem brings Giselle to London next week. And this time, she tells John Percival, she will dance it her way <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Sylvie Guillem was 22 when she made her Covent Garden debut as Giselle, partnered by Rudolf Nureyev and guesting with the Royal Ballet. And didn't we all go mad for her: that dazzling speed, such tremendously springy movement, high and light, and – most important of all – an amazing illusion of spontaneity, so that the virtuoso technique was used to build up a credible character<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=86696" TARGET=_blank>more...</A>

Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sun Aug 05, 2001 4:21 am

Leap into the unknownSylvie Guillem is a dancing sensation, but can she produce and choreograph? Admirably, says Nadine Meisner in The Sunday Times. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Sylvie Guillem may have a will of iron and a body of spun steel, but when she laughs - which she often does - her narrow, alert face lights up and the amusement in her eyes dances as buoyantly as her feet. She laughs that her projected book will be a photo album rather than a biography, because "I'm not dead yet". She confesses breezily that there have been some dance partners of whom she thought in private: "Never again!"<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <A HREF="http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/08/05/sticuldnc02003.html" TARGET=_blank>more...</A> [This message has been edited by Admin (edited August 05, 2001).]

Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sun Aug 05, 2001 10:41 pm

Mademoiselle Non, the reluctant diva of the danceby Jenny Gilbert in The Independent <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Asked to name a top living ballerina, there's a good chance that even someone with only a passing interest in tights and tutus might well come up with Sylvie Guillem. She is very well known and yet a mystery. For a start, how do you pronounce her – Gwil-lem? Gwi-yem? Gil-lem? Even the French can't seem to agree. And why is she so very famous? She is not a spokesman for the arts on TV, she endorses no product, has never appeared in Hello! and is photographed very rarely. Nor has she been tempted to compromise her art to appeal to a wider audience. She doesn't need to. She is the most talked-about female dance artist since Fonteyn, and the most in-demand freelance ballerina in the world.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><A HREF="http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=87047" TARGET=_blank>more...</A>

kurinuku · **Posted:** Sat Jul 31, 2004 12:01 am

Quote:

Sylvie Guillem: Dancing queen

By NADINE MEISNER
The Independent
July 31, 2004

Sylvie Guillem is a physical and mental phenomenon, created by an incredible trick of nature. Her unique body and mind have taken ballet into unimagined realms of virtuosity and beauty.

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Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sun Sep 12, 2004 1:32 am

'If I'm ready for a fight, I go for it'
She said it to Rudolf Nureyev and then to the Royal Ballet... Sylvie Guillem has said 'no' so often they call her Mademoiselle Non. Now approaching 40, and still impossibly slim and spiky, is she about to hang up her ballet shoes and spend more time with her cat? You can probably guess the answer. By Geraldine Bedell for The Observer.

Sylvie Guillem's athletic, sinuous dancing is unlike anyone else's. As physically exhilarating as she is rawly emotional, she seems constantly to be in search of new ways of touching her audience. She has no compunction about ditching the conventions if she thinks it will have more impact, which, in a form that is driven by conventions, can be controversial. So her distinctiveness has come at a price - she has a reputation.

click for more

Andre Yew · **Posted:** Fri Jun 03, 2005 12:43 pm

A wonderful feature on Sylvie Guillem:

Quote:

Who is Sylvie?
Jenny Gilbert, The Independent

She is a dancer of bewitching genius, a woman who gives absolutely nothing away. So why has she published a book of photographs from her personal album? Jenny Gilbert considers what it means to be Sylvie Guillem at 40, while her fellow professionals offer snapshots of a remarkable talent.
more

kurinuku · **Posted:** Tue Sep 19, 2006 1:51 am

Quote:

Fear is the drug
by JUDITH MACKRELL for the Guardian

Her body looks as if it could go on for ever. Still preternaturally slender and supple, it has thrown very few injuries at her, and Guillem says she has got much better at managing the chronic pain that is a daily fact of her dancing life. "It is difficult in the mornings," she admits, imitating herself creeping wincingly down the stars, "but I have learned to ask my body different things. Maybe I can't always do what I once did, but I sometimes end up discovering something new that may be even better."

published: September 14, 2006

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