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Josephine Jewkes,
The Long Road Back... | |||||||
Josephine Jewkes, dancer with Rambert and formerly an ENB Principal, writes each month on the "dancing life". Here is a link to the previous column in the series.I finally have the go-ahead to begin some gentle barre work and so I start to work on my own in the empty downstairs studio as the rest of the company do class upstairs. Using the pain as my guide, I do some gentle plies and tendus using three-quarter turnout and lying down to do floor exercises whenever the soreness threatens to go past a controllable limit. At this stage the reflection in the mirror is merciless as it exposes my weakened hip muscles which need to do some sustained weight-bearing and stabilising in order to whittle down into proper shape. Patience (that word again!) is essential however, because overloading could reinflame the area and send me back to square one for the third time. As the company depart for Seoul and Edinburgh, I am left behind to continue my recovery. Knowing only too well the tricks and subterfuges an injured body plays (uneven weight-bearing, bad placement, chronic tension), I know that private coaching is essential at this delicate stage. As my mentor, Maria Fay, has essential commitments, I decide to ask Mohsen El-Wakil to help me out. Now, in a just and sane world, this exceptional teacher would be in demand by the world's greatest schools and companies. Instead (and to my good fortune) he is left to cast his bread upon the becalmed sea of the dreaded 'open class' where any grandmother or bank clerk may turn up and pay their pennies (and they do) to mangle his enchainements. With the current acknowledged crisis in teaching in this country, this does not seem to me to be an intelligent use of resources. Mohsen and I set to work on Wednesday, 20 May. For one and a half hours (after an effective warm-up on the floor) I executed slow motion plies and tendus facing the barre, just as a 10-year old pupil does at the Vaganova Institute, but a vital, essential part of my own ballet training which I never enjoyed. Working in slow motion under the vigilant eye of a good teacher is the surest way to a pure, honest and healthy basic technique. At watching-paint-dry speed, any tendency to "cheat" (wrong breathing, bad placement, excessive tension, misplaced weight) can be exposed and corrected. Pouring with sweat and trembling like a leaf in a storm with muscle fatigue, our intensive efforts are rewarded with remarkable results. More progress is made the following week and I record the sessions with my video camera, thinking mainly of my future as a teacher. I would like to pass on to my pupils the priceless gift of a good base. The wider the base, the higher you can climb. I ask myself why I did not have that base? Why have I spent my entire professional life searching for the Holy Grail of the perfect fifth position, only to find it now that I am a modern dancer? Of course I have had a lovely career dancing a wide variety of classical, romantic, modern and dramatic roles, but I was always pigeon-holed as 'not a classroom dancer' ever since I was twelve years old. A bit young to give up on someone! After my disastrous year at White Lodge under the command of one teacher, my five (very happy) years at Bush Davies took me to the other extreme and I had at least 20 teachers of classical ballet during that time. If they had all taught the same style and technique, that would not have been such a problem, but I found my head whirling with conflicting instructions which often resulted in 'brain lock' (and 'body lock') as I tried to make sense of it all. Added to this, as I have said before, many of the best teachers were unhappy with teaching the stultifying RAD syllabus and so it was easy for me to know how I did not want to dance. Not so easy to know how to attain the unearthly perfection of Natasha Makarova, my idol at that time. I ran around doing two or even three full classical classes a day (64 grand plies one day, I counted) but my diary at the time is full of frustration as I wonder why I am not improving. I write these comments now because I wonder if the situation is still the same in our vocational schools? The RAD syllabus may well have changed for the better since that time, but a syllabus is only as good as the people who teach it and they in their turn need to teach it with love and deep knowledge. It scares me to realise how little I know. I feel like a big egg slowly swelling. One day a fledgling teacher will emerge. One day.
For now, I am trying to turn myself back into a dancer again. ("Why bother? I'm sure I'll have given up when I get to your age" a young colleague remarked.) Well, I'm 33 and maybe I just like swimming against the tide ............. Not Makarova II, of course not, but making 100% use of whatever God gave me. That is the whole point, and nothing but.
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