Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Ballerina and artistic director of the English National Ballet, world renowned as a stunning, emotional and dramatic performer.
On the island
Eight records
I adore Nina Simone. If I'm blue, she's just the person to put on. Or sometimes preparing for certain roles, she also helps me get there. And I do like this song very much.
Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
It's actually for me is Jeanon Me la Mour, is a piece of choreography created by Roland Petit. And I was very lucky to be able to perform it last year with Nicola Le Rees, who is a dancer I first met when I was very young in the school. And he came as a guest artist and I asked if I could stay to put on the tape for the rehearsal. And I completely fell in love with him. And then, of course, he was a big star, so I didn't see him for years and years and years. And he came back to the Royal Ballet and performed there as a guest, but I can never perform with him. And finally, last year, because as artistic director, you do get some good choices, I invited him to dance with me, and he accepted. So it's just like a dream come true.
And in my home, one of the things we didn't have was a television,'cause my parents didn't believe it was a good thing to have. So I will entertain myself every day just putting music on. And of course, being in Canada for so long, they had a lot of music by Leonard Cohen. And this walls was also inspired by a Spanish poet by Federico Garcia Lorca. So it just kind of touches me in every way.
Romeo and Juliet, the death scene (crypt scene)
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
I love this because even though it's clearly very sad, if you actually listen to the music, it's actually hopeful. It's not a sad piece of music. And when you're in it, it's it's just tender, it's just beautiful.
Como el AguaFavourite
Paco de Lucia, he he was the most incredible guitarist. And I used to come and see him live when he came to London. But he is uh here with Camaron, which is his partner, his perfect partner, because they were opposites. Paco was a perfectionist, a a classicist, and Camaron was all duende and all nature, and and together it was amazing.
It's actually a piece that appears in two valets. First in Meierlin, where uh Jonathan Cope is doing this incredible solo that is just before we kill ourselves. So it's very moving. And then it was chosen again this year by Liam Scarlett for the piece he created for us, for No Man's Land. So it's very beautiful.
For me, I think Amy changed the music industry beyond recognition. I mean, after her, every female singer is kind of inspired by Amy, and I do love this song.
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 (Andante)
Alfred Brendel and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by Neville Marriner
Again a masterpiece, this time a choreographic masterpiece by Giri Kiddie and Petit Mort, that I was lucky enough to bring to the company last year.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:03Tell me a little bit more about that physical sensation of dancing.
It's it is really like nothing else. It is as if the end of your nerves in your body were completely raw, as if you had no skin. So you feel everything. You feel your partner and you feel his emotions and you feel the air and you feel the audience. You you just feel everything in such high level.
Presenter asks
2:47At the end of a performance, when you have given your all, how do you feel?
It's sometimes difficult, like at the end of something like Juliet, you've lost everything and you have killed yourself. And the applause, although it's is of course very re rewarding, it feels like an intrusion. It's almost like I need five minutes to come back as as tamara.
Presenter asks
5:08What is the most demanding part of your job as artistic director of the English National Ballet?
I think transforming an organization is always difficult. Coming in with a set of new ideas and not able to compromise on them, because I truly believe They are our best chance to be extraordinary. … From the way we train the choreographers we bring, the meaning of those pieces, how they have to be relevant to where we live, the society we're in, the people that come to see us. Um the way we present the classic repertoire, how we have to update it, the places we go on tour, just everything really.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
13:39Can you remember the moment when you first saw a ballet class as a five-year-old?
Yeah, I remember. I really didn't enjoy school at all. I found it really noisy and and just too much happening all the time. And then because my mom was a working mother, she couldn't pick me up at the end of school, so I used to just wait for her or do something. And that day it was cold, and the teacher just said, Well, come into the gym and as I walked in, there was this piano music. and these beautiful girls moving, and of course the ballet teacher was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She smelled amazing. I mean, my school was nunn's school, so the contrast between the teachers and her was like a different world. And there was this quietness and this, yeah, harmony and it just felt perfect. It felt like a different world that I have never seen. And I just didn't want to leave. When my mother finally came to take me home, I was like, No, but we sh we need to stay and watch this to the end, whatever this is.'Cause I didn't know what ballet was. I didn't understand ballet was a performance. Performing wasn't what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do is ballet class and ballet rehearsals. And then once I started performing, I found a different love, another side of it that I really enjoyed.
Presenter asks
26:08When you're dancing with a new partner, how do you begin to build intimacy with them?
It's difficult. You sometimes it's instant. There's the same kind of movement, the same musicality, the same instinct. And then there are dances that have a completely different rhythm, inner rhythm, not not in terms of the music, but physical rhythm of breathing, of attacking something. And then you just have to learn how to adapt to that.
“It is as if the end of your nerves in your body were completely raw, as if you had no skin.”
“It's sometimes difficult, like at the end of something like Juliet, you've lost everything and you have killed yourself. And the applause, although it's is of course very re rewarding, it feels like an intrusion.”
“And there was this quietness and this, yeah, harmony and it just felt perfect. It felt like a different world that I have never seen.”
“You know, I know this could never work in the real life, you know. But you connect in a purely animalistic way. You you smell right for each other and your your heartbeats are right for each other.”