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Charlotte MacMillan, only child of one of Britain's greatest dance makers, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, had a date with her dead father last week that she has dreaded for a decade. At the Royal Opera House on Thursday the Royal Ballet danced Sir Kenneth's three-act drama, Mayerling, as a memorial tribute to the company's former Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer. We spoke before what was to be a poignant evening for his daughter and widow,

"I didn't think I could handle it until very recently", Charlotte quietly remembers, talking in the kitchen of the rambling South London family home, surrounded by dogs and the paraphernalia of her chosen profession of photography. "We'll be on show because everyone will know who we are. It's a bizarre double-edged sword because part of me just wants to lay the whole thing to rest, but I also have a lot of regrets and with all that bubbling inside we'll have to treat it like an ordinary night".

One irrational source of guilt for Charlotte, 29, is the inevitable conviction, born in hindsight, that she should have been there on that fateful night. "There was no earthly reason for me to go", she insists, "and as they couldn't get me a ticket anyway I went out with a friend. But it turned out to a very strange day for me". At the time Charlotte was attending Wimbledon School of Art. "I went to college as usual but could not shake off a very odd feeling that I should be with my Mum and Dad, so eventually I went home early. They were both there when I got in and for the first time in absolutely ages I sat on Dad's knee like I used to as a child and talked to him about my work and things". Never a man who enjoyed good health in later life, Sir Kenneth suffered a major heart attack in 1988 when touring Australia with the Royal Ballet. "He didn't fully recover", says Charlotte, "and for the last few weeks of his life he was deteriorating visibly. He looked really ill that night and my last memory of him was him walking down the stairs in his black tie and saying 'How do I look?' in that funny way he had and then I saw them out of the door on the way to the Opera House. That was the last time I saw him".

"I do feel Dad's death stunted my growing up process. Every time I've got sad about anything, I've always gone back to missing Dad. It's stopped me moving on in one sense". Even when he was alive, Charlotte's father's influence, though benevolent, was restrictive. "Dad was so protective of me when it came to boys, I heard him say to Mum one day if anyone ever hurts her, I'll kill them' - so I didn't have my 1st real boyfriend until after he died. I remember at 16

"Dad was so protective of me when it came to boys... so I didn't have my 1st real boyfriend until after he died"

complaining that I did have a boyfriend at college, and he replied rather loudly in a restaurant 'one day Charlotte, what you've got to understand is that boys your age get erections all the time and they'll stick into anything and it doesn't change until they're about 40'".

"It's a classic case of looking for a man like Dad, and finding they don't measure up", she goes on, "but no-one could replace Dad. I want someone who is sensitive and creative, and can understand where I'm coming from. For a long time I wanted someone to look after me, but I'm learning we all have to look after ourselves. My relationship with a dancer in the Royal Ballet (reputed to be soloist Thomas Whitehead) was a way of getting close to Dad after he died because I was that much more involved with his company. When I stopped seeing the dancer 2 years ago I realised I had to find my own voice, not take comfort in Dad's". And not even when he was alive has Sir Kenneth's voice been heard as loudly as in this 10th anniversary year of his death. As well as conferences and exhibitions all over Europe, the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet are mounting revivals of his work to join the dozen other works currently danced from Milan to Montreal and Paris to Tokyo. Sir Kenneth's legacy in the MacMillan Estate is supervised by his wife Deborah and Charlotte.

"This year has been a defining one for me", Charlotte explains, "because with all the conferences and analysing of his

"The grief we feel for Dad has been our main topic of conversation, so often we come in here and sit down and sob years after he's gone"

work that I've been hearing I've really had to come to terms with his creative gifts. The terrible things in his early life that he never talked about, the difficult relationships he had with his parents and brother and sisters, they shaped Dad. With my loving family background, I can never be like that. With him it helped his creativity to work through all that turmoil, but that's not for me. I say things differently. And I'm my mother's child, too. When you're growing up it's easier to identify with the parent who's important and everyone talks about, this year I've seen things differently. The grief we feel for Dad has been our main topic of conversation, so often we come in here and sit down and sob years after he's gone. But now things are changing between me and Mum. I feel we're two independent women making professional decisions together, objectively rather than emotionally and I love it. In a way I can see Dad's work from more of a distance than Mum can, it's a generation thing".

To escape the stifling effects of her father's prodigious talent and find her own way in life, Charlotte dropped out of art school, disappointed her parents academically and turned her back on a dancing career, before finding her true artistic outlet in photography. Ironically it is Sir Kenneth's brilliance as a choreographer that is bringing her

"So many people see dance as an old carthorse, but it can be reshaped and transformed without losing its original shape"

nearer to both of her parents. "I think I had to be nearly 30 for this to happen", she reflects. "I want to be more and more involved in making Dad's work something of today. Everything he ever did is written down so anything is possible. There's animation, film and television, you can infinitely transform what he created and the basics will always be there. So many people see dance as an old carthorse, but it can be reshaped and transformed without losing its original shape".

"I hope I don't go backwards on Thursday night", she adds, still nervous at the trial by Opera House ahead of her. But as her father's daughter, clearly there is little likelihood of that.