| Inside Stories - Manon |
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Guest Senior Principal Artists Thomas Edur and Agnes Oaks, who will dance the roles of Des Grieux and Manon, discuss Manon during a break in rehearsals.
Manon is performed in Oxford, 21 - 25 April and Cardiff, 28 April - 2 May. Click here for booking details. What is the history of your relationship with Kenneth MacMillan’s Choreography? Agnes Oaks: I have done MacMillan’s The Sleeping Beauty before, but this is quite a traditional ballet; you don’t see much of his originality there. Manon is really quite different and this is my first taste of the choreography. Thomas Edur: Unfortunately, we have not done many of Kenneth’s ballets. For Agnes as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, there is not much change from classical dance but for the Prince, there is a very lovely solo which really expresses the music and inner feelings of the Prince; his loneliness and his search for something else. I think this represents MacMillan’s relationship with real characters on stage. I would like to say that in every ballet there should be true to life characters; it is up to the dancer to bring them to life. I have danced in Manon before, fourteen years ago, in La Scala in Milan. I loved dancing it, I was young and it was a very big experience for me. So will your interpretation be different this time, now you are older? I don’t remember much! I think there will be differences. Emotionally, perhaps not so different, but maybe more awareness of presentation this time. When I was young I was just going for it! Now I will think about ‘this is good; this is not so good’. Although, when you analyse things you loose the raw personality on stage. For some roles you don’t want to over-analyse it. How do you prepare for roles such as Manon and Des Grieux? AO: Everybody prepares the role in their head - that’s called interpretation, I read the book and I tried to analyse what MacMillan wanted to show in his ballet. Obviously the novel is a much wider story and the ballet is a shorter version. It’s difficult to be a real person. In the Company we don’t perform that many dramatic ballets. Manon is not a fairy tale, so this is quite a challenge on stage. The choreography is one thing, but you cannot be too balletic, there has to be reacting in the dancing. I watched the original cast on DVD. It was created on those dancers, so that is the closest to what MacMillan wanted at the time. I think it’s vital for one to look at that. I do think they were wonderful. TE: I don’t rehearse emotionally so much with Agnes, as some people do. For me, this keeps the performances fresh. Sometimes, you have the feeling, so you do it naturally, but if you practice all the time, the smiles become fake; ‘plastic’. Ballet is an art and we have a great responsibility to provide real, in-depth feeling and high quality art. I strongly believe that you have to find in yourself a way to unlock the possibility of becoming a real artist and create the emotion, in the moment with the music, to be inspirational for yourself and the audience. How will you learn the choreography and is there room for any changes to the choreography to suit you or is very much ‘set in stone’? AO: It’s very much set, and I think quite rightly so. It’s very difficult if the choreographer is not alive and you start changing things, because where do you stop? TE: We learnt the choreography from Monica Parker, who was a choreologist at the Royal Opera House at the time of Kenneth MacMillan. She knows this ballet backwards. She’s wonderful and she could teach it with her eyes closed! In the beginning, she gave us loads of counts which was difficult, but you have to be precise, because everyone hears music differently, and it may be that the choreographer is trying to express something within the phrasing, or trying to create visual impact on stage on a particular note, so you cannot play around with that. The steps are set but it is up to you to what you do with them. Kenneth MacMillan was said to be interested in exploring’ the innermost recesses of human nature’. Do you feel his choreography lives up to this statement? AO: I think it does. It takes a real actor or actress to do this choreography, because the choreography moulds into the acting, it’s not separate at all. It’s quite a challenge for me as I haven’t performed that many ‘down to earth’ characters. TE: I’m not sure that choreography is the right word for it; it’s more like ‘staging’. The steps are wonderful and they do express the emotions, but it is the pauses, the positions and the looking into the eyes. MacMillan does it brilliantly, he is a master of that; not to over rush, or be too busy with too many steps. He is not afraid to hold people still and he trusts dancers to be still on stage, because he respects them as artists. Often, nowadays, choreographers make people constantly move on stage without any reason, and it’s a shame because the dancer can feel left out. Are there any particular sections of the choreography that you have to work on more than others? TE: Generally, it has taken me a long time to work out what the role is about and how I see myself in it; to be genuine to myself. Once I have worked that out, I know I can get on stage and project that to the audience. I produce the acting slowly, working on the structure first. It’s a bit like the process of building a wall first, then adding undercoat then the paint on top. AO: For me, the first pas de deux is tricky. It’s not that it is technically demanding but to make it look natural, and to make it flow has been difficult. When I first saw it I thought ‘that looks easy’, but I was surprised to find out how many small details mattered, and if anything that is one of the parts of the ballet we are still working on. TE: Agnes is right, Kenneth’s choreography is not so much about the steps. If you start seeing steps, you have lost the connection with the personalities. It has to come from the personality and the steps follow naturally. Could you describe your characters in a few words? AO: Manon is Charming. Passionate. Calculating. Seductive. There is a lot to her. She is fighting between true love and her pleasures, she adores being rich and cannot cope with choosing between the two. It is an inner battle and eventually leads to betrayal, she deceives Des Grieux many times. It is a very rich character. TE: Des Grieux is honest, loyal, passionate. How will you prepare for a performance? Could you count us down the last two hours before a performance? AO: When I arrive I will start with my make up, check my costumes and choose my shoes. I will probably use a different pair for each act of the ballet; some softer, some harder. Then the hair lady helps me to do my hair. Then it’s the warm up to get my body warm and all that time you are mentally preparing as well. All that takes about two hours. Sometimes you end up in the tiniest dressing room doing your warm up, with others around you and that can be really distracting as they might not need to be as focussed as you, but one learns to cope with that and to respect the other dancers. But ideally, I need my own space at that moment. TE: My preparation is less stressful, perhaps. The biggest problem for the girls is the pointe shoes, because every pair of shoes is different, it’s like choosing the tyres on a formula one car. For boys it’s not as important. Although I am always very aware of any stitches on my shoes under foot. Like the ‘princess and the pea’, I feel everything! So I flatten my shoes with a hammer. We all have our own ways of preparing. What do you hope the audience’s reaction will be? AO: The book is extremely famous; I just hope we hope we will be able to deliver what it’s all about. We hope that they will appreciate and love it. TE: It’s a great opportunity for regional audiences to come and see this very special ballet. We have to get the message to people what it’s all about - a great drama. There will be around 30 performances of Manon by the end of the season. How will you keep the performances fresh for each new audience? AO: It’s easier to keep a story like Manon fresher than a fairy tale story because you’re not thinking about acting the story; you are living it. You’re going to be so much ‘in’ your character and you can find more ‘colours’ than in some other ballets. Following a performance do you expect that the characters will affect you? Will you find it hard to come back to reality? AO: I think it will be a draining experience. If you live through the tragedy of Manon and Des Grieux, it will probably be exhausting. TE: I would compare it to dancing in Romeo and Juliet, or Giselle. The torment of Albrecht, particularly in the second act in Giselle, means I often get a headache following a performance, from physical and emotional exhaustion. And after Romeo and Juliet, I know that Agnes finds it hard to sleep after a show. The things we do for our art! I think we will react similarly to the performances of Manon. AO: But at the same time it’s extremely rewarding and you feel a great sense of relief at the end of a performance. |
SpotlightKerry Birkett
Recently choreographed a piece inspired by The Secret Garden at the Wycombe Swan
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