Patricia Ruanne A conversation with a ballet répétiteur An interview by Bill Bissell

• Introduction •

Patricia Ruanne is concerned with the abiding aesthetic and ethical values that constitute ballet as an art form. In this world, artistic values are informed by aesthetics as well as ethics. Her impressive record as a dance artist—as performer, coach, ballet mistress, répétiteur—has yielded a remarkable career. Ruanne’s articulate assessment of the European ballet scene is framed by her early years spent in the Royal Ballet schools and companies, the 1960s through the early 1980s—a period marked by prolific creativity and strong performing personalities—as well as by her long and formative working association with Rudolf Nureyev.

Patricia Ruanne’s dance pedigree was attained at England’s Royal Ballet schools at White Lodge and Baron’s Court. Her career ranges over an impressive roster of performing credits that includes contracts with the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet Touring companies, London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), and many guest appearances on numerous projects and tours, several of which were gathered together as vehicles for Nureyev. A turning point in Ruanne’s career as a dancer came when Nureyev selected her to create the role of Juliet in his landmark production of Romeo and Juliet. 2002 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of this production, which was premiered by the London Festival Ballet at the Coliseum on 2 June 1977.

Among other roles she created in addition to Juliet was the female lead in Ronald Hynd’s The Sanguine Fan for London Festival Ballet in 1976. Ruanne retired from performing in 1983 and in her last season received an Olivier nomination for her portrayal of Tatiana in John Cranko’s Onegin with London Festival Ballet—her first performance in that ballet. From 1983-85, she was ballet mistress for LFB and, bringing history full circle, is currently working with the ENB on a revival of Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet in a production that will receive its first performance on the company’s spring tour in Liverpool on 5 March 2002.

When Nureyev assumed the artistic direction of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1983, Ruanne followed him there in 1986 to become a Ballet Mistress. During the decade that followed in Paris, Ruanne became responsible for restaging many productions of his ballets on numerous companies around the world. Since leaving the Paris Opera in 1996, Ruanne has been engaged throughout Europe restaging the works of Kenneth MacMillian, while also remaining one of the significant artistic caretakers of Rudolf Nureyev’s choreographic body of work. From 1999-2001, Ruanne was acting director of the ballet company for the La Scala theatre in Milan, Italy.

The first part of this conversation considers Ruanne’s professional development as a dancer, beginning with the Royal Ballet Touring Company under the direction of John Field and continuing up through her recently held position as Direttore del Corpo di Ballo at La Scala. The second part of the conversation focuses on Ruanne’s work with Rudolf Nureyev. Her perspective supports the need for new critical attention to Nureyev’s versions of ballet classics such as Swan Lake, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, and Sleeping Beauty. Ruanne astutely makes the case that these works need and deserve to be documented and preserved. Evidence that Nureyev’s Don Quixote “has not been bettered,” in Ruanne’s estimation, is provided by major restagings in Spring 2002 at both the Royal Ballet in London and the Paris Opera Ballet.

This interview took place on 2 March 2001, at the Palais Garnier in Paris, where Ruanne was engaged with the restaging of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon for the Paris Opera Ballet. Subsequent interviewing took place during the summer of 2001. Bill Bissell, who interviewed Ruanne, is director of Dance Advance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.