CriticalDance Forum

An interview with Sylvie Guillem as she prepares for a new work by Russell Maliphant at the Royal Opera House:

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Does anyone know whether she's ever used her early gymnastics training in a ballet?

<small>[ 02 December 2003, 01:55 PM: Message edited by: djb ]</small>

Sylvie and the Boyz

Hurled through the air, her body a mass of bruises, superstar ballerina Sylvie Guillem is risking everything for an extraordinary new Royal Ballet commission. Ismene Brown reports

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Russell Maliphant: Is that Sylvie Guillem twiddling her thumbs in the corner?
With only days to go, Russell Maliphant's first work for the Royal Ballet is still up in the air. But no one's very worried, finds Jenny Gilbert for The Independent on Sunday

It's Paddington Station along the top corridor of the Royal Ballet's rehearsal block. With little over a week to go before the opening night of three world premieres, studio time is metered by the minute. Press your nose to one glass door and there's the choreographer Wayne McGregor marshalling teeming forces in a vast bright gym. Guest-star Adam Cooper dashes past, checking his watch like the white rabbit, to rehearse William Tuckett's new duet for him and Zenaida Yanowsky.

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Stealing Beauty
At 38, Sylvie Guillem has given all she can to the classical canon. Now, the explosive diva tells Debra Craine, it's time to explore new horizons. From The Times:



Sylvie Guillem is tired and thirsty. Not so much physically — when we meet she has just come out of a massage and is clutching a bottle of water. No, Covent Garden’s star ballerina is tired in an artistic sense — of her core repertoire, of those fluttering, frantic ballet beauties who die for love — and she’s thirsty for creative adventures. You can hardly blame her. She is 38 and time is running out for that fabulous body of hers.

For 14 years, the headstrong French ballerina has danced just about everything she wanted at the Royal Ballet (Juliet and Giselle, Manon and Marguerite) and has brought a wondrous mix of technical brilliance, feminine glamour and dramatic passion to these roles.

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From Ismene Brown's article:

Does anyone know why her gymnastic childhood is perceived as a burden, and whose perception this is? Is it Guillem's?

<small>[ 02 December 2003, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: djb ]</small>

A number of critics and traditionalists have deplored her "six o'clock " extensions, which are possible because of her gymnastic aptitude and blame her for helping to subvert ballet.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not a member of this camp and look forward, more than somewhat, to the new Maliphant work.

Hmm...there are plenty of dancers with 6 o'clock or 10-past-6 penchees who didn't come from a gymnastic background. I wonder where the blame is placed in those cases?

I have to raise my hand and admit to a loathing of six o'clock extensions when performed in the classics. In modern works I'm indifferent, if its what the choreographer requires and the dancer is prepared to risk her hip joints......

In the past few years I've become more and more appreciative of the shrinking number of dancers that realize the stylistic imperative of keeping the leg down.

Judith Mackrell awards the new RB mixed bill 5*, a rare occurrence. A friend of mine who knows a thing or three about dance was also described the evening as "superb". Hats off to Monica Mason for an imaginative choice of choreographers:

Royal Ballet mixed bill
By Judith Mackrell for The Guardian


It's widely rumoured that ballet companies are dying for lack of new ideas and performers. But on Wednesday the Royal raised a defiant finger to that notion by programming a quartet of works that flaunted fresh blood.

Freshest of all was Russell Maliphant, who may be a celebrity on the independent dance scene but is unknown to opera house fans. The fact that his first work for Covent Garden boasts Sylvie Guillem and ex-Royal Ballet rebels William Trevitt and Michael Nunn could easily have been the main story. But Broken Fall is a collaboration that resonates larger than its individual star parts.

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<small>[ 04 December 2003, 06:42 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Guillem's fall is well worth catching
By Debra Craine for The Times


YOU wait months for something new at the Royal Ballet and then three world premieres pop up at once, all on a single night. Which makes the new Covent Garden dance bill something special indeed. Whether any of the creations enjoys a long life in the repertoire remains to be seen, but from the way the audience cheered on Wednesday night I’d say the time was right to shake things up at the Royal Ballet.

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<small>[ 05 December 2003, 11:11 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

New Choreographies Covent Garden, London CLEMENT CRISP
By Clement Crisp
Financial Times; Dec 05, 2003



Alas for good intentions. In an Opera House-based troupe, where financial survival depends on trotting out yet another full-length ballet, the artistic air gets stuffy, stale as the audience's responses and the dancers' dutiful performance. For a company with as rich a treasury of one-act works as the Royal Ballet - few ensembles have repertories more varied - to neglect these is a denial of identity.

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Royal Ballet: mixed bill, Royal Opera House, London
By Zoe Anderson for The Independent

The Royal Ballet has commissioned three works this season, and put them on the same bill. It's as if they're getting a quota out of the way, shuffling all the new stuff into the same corner. In spite of starry casting, it isn't popular: seat prices have been reduced, then reduced further. In an unfortunate sense, this is an experimental evening. The new works don't look ready for the main stage.

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A big blast of here and now
Ismene Brown reviews a mixed bill by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden. From The Daily Telegraph:


It's Lara Croft meets The Matrix, it's the world of today, and it's finally arrived at Covent Garden. The young choreographers have taken over the Opera House in this bold programme, and show in a blast of differences what they think and see. Ballet, for Russell Maliphant, Wayne McGregor, Mark Morris and William Tuckett, is not the literary romances and musical inspirations of the past.

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Royal Ballet
Royal Opera House, London WC2

Beauty and the Beast
Birmingham Hippodrome

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Mixed Bill/ Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House
More power to their pointes
By Jenny Gilbert for The Independent

It's two long years since the Royal Ballet notched up a world premiere, and if the box office controlled these things it would be longer still. But if you accept that new work is the lifeblood of any performing enterprise, then Wednesday's hat-trick of premieres delivered a full-blown transfusion. It also issues a ringing declaration of faith in British creative talent, which bodes only good things for the RB's future.

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<small>[ 09 December 2003, 08:49 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>