Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Finest English classical dancer of his generation, later became director of the Royal Ballet.
On the island
Eight records
Well, this is back to the perhaps the career monkey, the one thing that I would when I sit in front out front, especially in New York, and a wonderful overture of a musical start, and I think, my God, to be in that dressing room hearing an overture such as this, the adrenaline is really pumping, and I'm thinking, God, I'd like to get up there and do it.
Oh, this is month in the country. It's it's here because of my association with Sir Frederick, who really again put me on the the map in my first creative role, that of Oberon in the dream.
My choices are really memory lane triggers. Because I'm all right at being alone, but I think after a while of just sea, sun, and sand. And maybe the brain addles after a while and I would like to touch back to roots and things. So this is family time. This is the radio which I absolutely adored...
I know that when I've travelled, and although I adore being in America, I adore the American people, I love working there, some of my happiest experiences have been when I'm in the United States, I would always have to settle here. The roots are very strong in the English soil.
Gloria: Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
Choir of Radio France and the French National Orchestra
Part of Gloria, a ballet I wasn't involved with, but a masterwork of Kenneth Macmillan's to remind me of Kenneth. I'd thought whether to include a piece of music that represented the roles that I had created with him, but that would have brought the old nervous feeling to the pit of my stomach.
Oh, a great gear change here. My beloved Barbara Streisand. She was a great ballet fan. She came and saw us at the Met. She took us out to dinner after a show.
Again, back to the musicals, but this time on film. Although I admire greatly, even more now, F Fred Astaire and the great talents, at the time Gene Kelly was the man for me as as the dancer, and I I think my mum would have loved it if I'd become another Gene Kelly.
Peter Grimes: Four Sea Interludes (Sunday Morning)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Again, I don't necessarily want to be reminded too much of roles in the ballet, but it's very descriptive music, and this is actually this interlude. It sort of means a lot. It's a sort of bustling, there's a feeling of hope in in the theme of this, a new day starting.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:54Does it feel like two entirely different lives [being a star versus taking the brickbats as director]?
It does actually. Even when I walk on stage before a show and see my own artists getting ready, I think I can't believe I did that.
Presenter asks
1:32Do you sit there now watching your own company on the stage and just ache to be up on the stage?
I miss certain elements of it. I don't miss the nerves and the tension. I used to feel sick. It was like execution time. … But the actual art of performing, of being just in charge of yourself and of course I can't get away from it, the adulation too that I received.
Presenter asks
3:10Was there a single moment when the die was cast [for ballet]? Was it when you stood in front of Dame Ninette de Valois?
Yes, my mum took me into the opera house … and we went right up to an office … and there was this desk and this woman, rather sort of foreboding expression on her face … and just said, Well, let me see. And I had to stand back from the desk while she eyed my little knees, and that was it.
The keepsakes
The book
Kenneth Grahame
It is the wind and the willows. It's a great sort of escape to me during um perhaps not such happy times when I was at the school. It's a magic world of domesticity and not too much gloom around the corner, so I would pick that.
The luxury
unlimited sketch pads and watercolour paints and oils
I'm going to go for sort of unlimited sketch pads and watercolour paints and oils. It was one of my first loves as a child which sadly got really rather shelved away because of the dancing and the demands of it. And that's took over and I'm very much looking forward to tapping into that one day.
Presenter asks
5:12What is a truly classical dancer? Why are you the greatest classical dancer of your generation?
It's based on what pleases the eye first good proportions. Very musical. And I suppose I w if I was asked to describe my qualities, what was important to me was to make dancing look natural and easy, not to show any of the preparations involved, to make it seamless.
Presenter asks
21:14Why have you not appointed a principal choreographer since Kenneth MacMillan died so suddenly and tragically in 1992?
Well, they're a rare breed. I think it would be wrong to give a mantle to someone who I didn't feel was ready or hadn't perhaps realized their full potential or was not right for the company. I mean, they are they are very, very rare people.
“I miss certain elements of it. I don't miss the nerves and the tension. I used to feel sick. It was like execution time.”
“I grew up with that stigma attached, you know, and it's it's a lot, lot better, but it's one of the easy laughs for a comic to get into a dress and do the dance of the little swans in Wellington's, you know, it's all getting a bit tired.”
“Yes, it's the biggest tragedy of a dancer that rather like the Hofnung thing with the bucket and the thing, your artistry is moving up and the body's moving down.”
“When you're in a position of power and control or you've been successful, I think there's an element when you're written about they think you're really up there loving it and feeling very sort of complacent and self-satisfied, and you're still that insecure person wanting to do your best.”