Georgina Parkinson: An interview conducted by Bill Bissell, cont.

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BISSELL: What kind of impact did working with Kenneth MacMillan and Frederick Ashton have on you?

PARKINSON: Working with those two men shaped my life, really. I mean it was an enormously creative and verdant time at the Royal Ballet when I was there. I thanked God I had my career when all of that–especially the creative aspect–was in full bloom. If it wasn't a MacMillan ballet, it was an Ashton ballet. I worked with George Balanchine. Bronislava Nijinska was another turning point in my life. The caliber of people that worked with us and on us was unbelievable. Ashton and MacMillan alone taught me things about myself and the way I danced that I didn't know. They pushed and stretched, and I was never told "Oh, she's lyrical," or, oh, she's this. I was challenged on all sides. And that certainly helped me when I came to America.

What I missed in New York after my move was a certain lack of creativity compared to what I'd had when I was with the Royal. Here it's very much more about fitting into other people's shoes; about making your own personal comment, but not about having a choreographer develop a dancer. That happens, but very rarely because of the way things are in America financially and the amount of work weeks. It didn't occur to me I wasn't getting a fifty-two week contract when I came here.

BISSELL: Both choreographers share a similar interest in narrative and yet their approaches to choreography were very different. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the way these differences get transmitted to the dancer?

PARKINSON: It was very different with each of them. It's wonderful at that young age to have the challenge of working with these different people and becoming a sponge for each of them. I think I felt more comfortable in the narrative works because I was able to use my own imagination. And that's what Kenneth did–and Fred as well: they both gave you material, both of them in different ways, and then it was up to the individual right there and then to flesh it out. It became a collaboration of the minds with both Fred and Sir Kenneth. Kenneth would be more explicit about what steps he wanted than Fred who would just ask you to do something.

BISSELL: You mean Ashton or MacMillan would frame a problem, and then you had to solve it?

PARKINSON: Yes and then he'd go, "No, I don't like that. Try this." But Kenneth would know exactly what he wanted up to a point. If there was a pas de deux, he'd want you to try it. Or if you did something wrong and he'd catch it and love it, then he would put it in. It was a truly creative process. It not only included the choreographer and the dancer, it included the designer, the costumes, the music. It was a complete experience. You became very much a part of the production that they were creating.

BISSELL: What about going from something like Monotones in 1966 to Enigma Variations in 1968?

PARKINSON: Just how lucky was I? It was just amazing. I mean you don't consciously do anything different–you simply absorb the atmosphere in the room, and you come up with what's expected of you. It's creation for all of us. It was like Mayerling when Kenneth gave me the role of the Empress Elizabeth. This was a little bit later in my career. But the research, the books I read about the history of Austria at that time–I don't think there was a book on that period that I didn't read. I absorbed myself in that character; it was just thrilling. Then Kenneth wrote me the steps and then through the steps I was able to have my own personal opinion about the Empress Elizabeth. So that's really what I call creation. Or, you know, even if it were abstract like Monotones: it was up to us to do the steps Fred set on us and to make it grow from there, to absorb the atmosphere, the music. It was one of the best parts of being a dancer in my time.

BISSELL: Certainly this feeling must have been encouraged by being surrounded by so many other fabulous dancers in the company in those years?

PARKINSON: I thought, my God, this is just so rich. And then, you know, Bronislava Nijinska walked into my life.

BISSELL: Can you talk about her?

PARKINSON: Oh, I could write a book; she's my favorite subject. She was the only person in my life who unconditionally loved me. I don't know what she saw, and I was never scheduled to be in her ballet Les Biches. It was incredible circumstances–everybody who was working with her said, "Oh, my God! She's so difficult. If you've been in one of her rehearsals, it's like a nightmare." All these ballerinas were involved, a good handful of them. Initially, however, I wasn't involved at all, and I thought, that's lucky because who needs to work with a difficult woman who doesn't speak English?

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

I had made a rehearsal for myself as Queen of the Willis, because I was doing it the next night, and I hadn't had enough rehearsal. So in the lunch hour–which believe it or not we actually had at the Royal Ballet unlike life at ABT–I had the pianist and I had the room. There I was, leaping across the floor, rehearsing myself in Queen of the Willis. And who appeared in the doorway, but Bronislava Nijinska with Michael Soames? I continued to work, though I may have jumped a bit higher or tried a bit harder when I realized who was watching. And so that was that, and I left the room, and they came in for their rehearsal. When my name was added to the cast for Les Biches the next day I thought, how weird!

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.

So I went to rehearsal, prepared to stand at the back of the room. It turned out that the rehearsal was for the role of the Blue Girl and 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. 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. Yet, as far as I was concerned, it was magic. It was a very difficult process for me at first. 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.