Julie Lincoln, repetiteur
Since leaving the RBS, Lincoln has been closely associated with staging MacMillan's dances. She was encouraged, in fact, by Lady MacMillan to pursue a certificate in Benesh notation as an aid to her work as a repetiteur. Training in dance notation-usually the Labanotation or Benesch systems-frequently augments the still predominant method of learning by osmosis. "I got through the course and it's been a great help," she says. "It is another tool for accuracy and it's actually very important. I always go through every score even though it takes me a long time because I'm not a master of it. I go through all the scores and use them in the studio from time to time. I can sit and look through them at night in preparation."
Still, in addition to formal systems of notation or filmic documentation, a successful repetiteur draws from diverse-and available-resources. She or he is part dancer, part choreographer, part archivist, part detective, and part historian. They also have to be keenly interested in the performers with whom they work. When first starting out, Lincoln remembers that she "took no notes-nothing. I might write down the odd step but I didn't take formal notes as such. I think it's very difficult to write down those experiences. You observe somebody, you see how they work. I'd remember the material, in the main."
In her free lance career as a repetiteur, Lincoln's commitment to the absent choreographer is followed closely by her respect for dancers. "When I was at the Royal Ballet School as Ballet Mistress," she recalls, "I think the most important thing-if I was doing a ballet or a repertoire piece-was the artistic consideration of what the dancers looked like. I wanted them to be mature-the women to be feminine artists, the men or the boys to be strong. I knew exactly what I wanted someone to look like-to become. While I didn't always achieve it, I was at least striving for something. It was wonderful for me to see somebody improving." In her work today, one of her goals is to create a rehearsal environment where "everyone is valued and made to feel important." Lincoln finds that in the large story ballets some dancers are not encouraged to feel they are part of the whole effort. "It's amazing what you can get from people if you notice somebody three rows back and say, 'Actually, that was very good.' Anybody can put people in lines and make them lift their arms-one, two, down three, four. But that to me is not the measure of a great production. A great ensemble has to work as one, but at the same time each individual must dance as an artist within that framework. Then you will see a beautiful corps de ballet where they all breathe and everyone on stage understands the artistic whole. That's difficult to achieve, but that's what people should strive for."
Lincoln's approach builds on her own experience as a dancer. "I know how desperately depressing it is if the people in charge concentrate only on the stars or the people in the middle of the stage and forget all the other dancers who are also involved in the scene," Lincoln reflects. She believes that rehearsals "are a time to make everybody feel that they are important. Whether an audience is aware of that or not, it is the total spectacle ultimately that will make a good performance."
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