Georgina Parkinson: A dancer in her time/making the blueprint, cont.

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Georgina Parkinson as Myrta in Giselle, The Royal Ballet; photo by Roy Round, c.1966.

As successful as her career was in the classics, particularly in Swan Lake, Parkinson kept encountering more intimate and challenging ways of working choreographically. Though she remains particularly identified with–and attached to–the work of MacMillan, perhaps the pivotal artistic collaboration in her career was with Bronislava Nijinska and the revival of Les Biches at the Royal Opera House in 1964.

Her encounter with Nijinska shouldn't have happened at all. "I was never scheduled to be in Les Biches" she explains. "Everybody who was working with her said, "Oh, my God! She's so difficult." I thought, who needs to work with a difficult woman who doesn't speak English?"

Yet luck again intervened. As she rehearsed alone in a studio for the demanding role of Queen of the Willis, Parkinson saw Nijinska and Michael Soames [a former principal dancer with the company] watching her in the doorway. She was surprised when her name showed up on the cast list the next day, and soon learned that she was called to audition for the role of the Girl in Blue. "Nijinska asked me to do the first bourrÿy´e across the stage with my hand on my face–and that was it: she fell in love right there, and she never left me alone."

Bronislava Nijinska with Georgina Parkinson during the reconstruction of Les Biches, chor. Bronislava Nijinska, The Royal Ballet; photo by Roy Round, 1964.

The memory flows from Parkinson as she recalls the process of maturing artistically through her relationship with the seminal choreographer. "She coached me to my little finger. It wasn't the sort of relationship where I could sit down and chat with her because she didn't speak English very well–or if she did, she wasn't letting on. I didn't have the necessary technique to do what she wanted but through her belief in me, her knowing that I was the girl she wanted in that part, she produced unbelievable results."

"The whole point with the Blue Girl in Les Biches demanded the character to come alive. The character was within the choreography: the chic-ness, the style, the manner in which I performed, and the musicality–how she [Nijinska] used the music, where she wanted the emphasis. All of these elements were terribly important. Fortunately, I had real quality time, right up to the dress rehearsal, to work with her and develop the Blue Girl."

Georgina Parkinson with Bronislava Nijinska at a rehearsal of Les Biches, chor. Bronislava Nijinska, The Royal Ballet, costume after original design by Marie Laurencin; photo by Central Press Photos Ltd., November 30, 1964.

Georgina Parkinson as the Girl in Blue in Les Biches, chor. Bronislava Nijinska, The Royal Ballet; photo by Roy Round, December 1964.

Georgina Parkinson as the Girl in Blue in Les Biches, chor. Bronislava Nijinska, The Royal Ballet; photo by Roy Round, 1964.

For Parkinson, working with Nijinska was "probably the greatest experience I've had in my whole career, of getting to the stage where I felt I could be proud of what I had to offer, and then doing it on opening night, and having the success that we all had with that ballet. It was just amazing." While she never worked with Nijinska again, learning Les Biches with the choreographer marked an important artistic milestone in Parkinson's career and in the growth of her artistic identity. "I can't actually put it into words what an experience like that was for me yet it defined what I think having a career as a ballerina is all about: the relationships, the work ethic, the commitment over and above anything else I was doing. I've been on symposiums and things like that to talk about Bronislava, and I never really get across how much that process meant to me. I've never had anyone believe in me to the extent that she believed in me."