Patricia Ruanne A conversation with a ballet répétiteur Part 2: Rudolf Nureyev and the Passion for Work

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Patricia Ruanne: …and, of course—I mean inevitably—I was very strongly influenced by my work with Rudolf Nureyev because he opened the door to something that I didn’t know I possessed, which is always a major turning point for any dancer.

Patricia Ruanne with Rudolf Nureyev, at a post-performance reception the night that Romeo and Juliet premiered in Paris, c.1991-1992 season. Photo: Jacques Moatti

BB: What did you find behind this door?

Ms. Ruanne: That I was strong in health, that there was no limit to what I could do. I mean I was strong physically, but I had a major—a very serious—back injury when I was quite young in the Royal Ballet and I had to retrain in order to cope with it. So, there was always this slight hesitancy preventing me from getting past a certain point. And Rudolf said, “you go until the point comes and then you just go to the limit of the point. Then, you go on. You think that you can’t go any further but then suddenly you will find your second wind.”

We all know about second wind addicts but I found I had a third and fourth wind, and each day of working with him I became conscious that my body was truly my own instrument. When we started to create Rudolf’s Romeo and Juliet, we started at ten in the morning and we’d finish at ten-thirty at night without a break. We’d have food sent in. Every Sunday we’d work slowly all day and night. We went for fittings at eight o’clock or whatever it took and found that we could do it. And the first day of the performances he wanted no cast changes, which made sense because he was starting to find the ensemble with those who had made the dance with him. So, the first cast took the initial three-and-a-half weeks of performances. We were very thin. People said you can’t do that you’ll kill yourself, but you didn’t. It was very interesting and it gives you incredible reassurance to discover that you have strength that you had no idea you had. I was not a feeble dancer by any means, but at the same time it really was mind over matter, and he helped me to understand that. And not by being pushy just by encouragement, saying “go on, do it again.”

BB: In the United States, there is growing attention to the stewardship of choreographic legacy—to documentation and preservation of dances, to the ways in which repertory is maintained when a choreographer dies. How present are these concerns in Europe with the work of artists such as Kenneth MacMillan and Rudolf Nureyev?

Ms. Ruanne: MacMillan’s dances are very well protected because issues of documentation were dealt with before he died. Also his wife, Lady Deborah, is very involved in productions and in helping to oversee how a ballet should be revived—determining when the décor needs to be rethought, for example. She is very useful in previewing young designers whom she can guide towards having a sense of how they need to visualize things, in helping to relay what the choreographer wants to say. Then, of course, the Royal Ballet carries on a very strong tradition of encouraging new productions alongside the presentation of older repertoire—it’s really part of that company’s heritage. So, the MacMillan situation has absolutely no problems really and the same could equally apply to the situation with Ashton. The presentation of their repertories within the Royal Ballet is well protected.

The area at huge risk of being lost—and that which I am involved in trying to sort out—is Rudolf’s work. Not very long ago we had a meeting—Ric and I—with Mr. John Tooley to talk about this situation along with the Nureyev Foundation. [Ric is Frederic Jahn, free-lance ballet master and former member of London Festival Ballet, where Nureyev created the role of Tybalt on him in Romeo and Juliet.] So, there is a discussion going on about how to preserve this work for the future. Notation is expensive and only the largest companies—Paris, Vienna, and Milan—can even produce these works—Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Cendrillon. Each one of us who stages these ballets has different reference points. For example, Ric and I share Romeo. He does the whole ballet, the male stuff and the fights. I do the roles for the principals. I can’t read a word from his notes and he can’t read a word of mine. This has to be investigated and researched because otherwise these ballets are going to die.

BB: How do you help a new generation of dancers to experience this work with a feeling of authenticity? How does coaching help sustain Nureyev’s vision?

Ms. Ruanne: It is very important that the dancer know what the choreographer wanted; that they try to understand the man and what was important to him. You have to understand the passion for perfection that he had and the passion to work until you “got it.” It’s not a question of saying, “This is the correct version. Fine, I’ll do that.” Recreating these works is something you have to labor for. It’s not easy. And it’s very individual.

There are dancers who want to find an authenticity in the work, and honor what Rudolf wanted, to honor the intent of the choreography. This effort must be the benchmark—to expect nothing less than a full attempt to recover the spirit of the original work. There are some dancers who won’t go this distance, and that’s where it gets dangerous because that’s when it starts to fall apart. A revival can become an approximation of what was wanted—it may look like a diamond, but it ain’t. At the same time, you have to work with what you can get and you can’t train dancers by sitting on them so hard that they say, “I’ll never do it.” You have to have flexibility and remember that Rome was not built in a day. Coaching is not just about technical issues; it’s also about sensibility.