© Patrick Baldwin Daria Klimentova on Ballet.co: Daria Klimentova gallery of ENB phtotgraphs (Jun 2008) Interview (Dec 2007) Masterclass Diary (Aug 2004) Masterclass Diary (Aug 2003) Interview (Feb 2000) Klimentova in reviews recent ENB reviews Daria Klimentova website: www.dariaklimentova.co.uk Daria Klimentova's International Ballet Masterclasses in Prague: www.balletmasterclass.com Simonetta Dixon reviews

A beaming Daria Klimentova greets me in the reception of Markova House with the offer of a soothing cappuccino, which I eagerly accept, having scraped my car along a brick wall just outside the building as I was parking. As I wait for her to return with the comfort coffee, I can hear the sounds of tap dancing and someone’s shouts “and one and two and one and two” coming from one of the studios. English National Ballet are in rehearsal for the upcoming ‘Strictly Gershwin’ at the Royal Albert Hall, for which Daria is creating one of the roles.

However, before we come to the present, I take her back to her childhood in Prague, and ask her why she started dancing. Like other world-class dancers such as Sylvie Guillem and Alina Cojocaru, she originally trained to be a gymnast. By the age of ten, her talent was spotted by her teacher who suggested to her parents that she might be better off as a ballet dancer than a gymnast, since her career as the latter would probably stop at 20 years old, and her back could sustain damage. “When my parents asked me if I’d like to switch to ballet, I didn’t even know what it was”, recalls Daria. “All I wanted to know was whether I could still kick my legs up, and when they said yes, I said ok, I’ll do it.” She was accepted into the national ballet school, and trained there until she was 18. During her time at the school, she entered a few international ballet competitions, and won prizes, which was unusual for a dancer from such a small country. When she entered the Prague National Theatre Ballet, this stood her in good stead. “At 18, I auditioned for the national ballet company, and was accepted, which had been my dream since I started. After six months, most unusually, I was promoted to principal dancer.”
 

Whilst she was with the company she was still entering competitions and this led to an invitation to her to join the Cape-Kruger Ballet in Capetown, South Africa. “At first I didn’t want to go… it was too far away from Europe. But then I thought that it would be a good chance to learn English, and to try something different. When I started by saying no, they offered me better money, so I finally said yes!” She spent a year in Cape Town and was then offered a principal dancer job at Scottish Ballet by Galina Samsova, who had seen her in a competition. She spent two years there but, like many before her, was finally defeated by the weather: “I really liked the Company; I liked my colleagues and I liked working with Galina. It was very interesting. But I hated the weather. It was always raining, always cloudy and cold. I didn’t like Glasgow either, probably because of the weather!” Luckily, rescue came in the form of Derek Deane, who invited her to join ENB in 1996. I am surprised that it’s already 12 years that she has been there. “Yes but I’m still young”, she asserts very quickly. Unfortunately, just after she joined the Company her father was diagnosed with cancer. “It was a horrible time,” she says, with a break in her voice. “My father was very sick, I was crying a lot,

Daria in Sleeping Beauty rehearsals (2005) © ENB

I didn’t have any friends yet, and it was very, very difficult. Also, I didn’t realize how hard ENB work, much more than any other company I’d ever been in. They expect 200% every day, and this was a shock to my body and my mind. But I’ve survived. After a year my father died, so it was a very sad time for me.”

To prove her point about how hard ENB work, Daria tells me about her first four months with the Company: “I did Etudes, Coppelia, Snow Queen and Sugar Plum in Nutcracker, and Lilac Fairy, Bluebird and Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, which meant at one point I did five shows in a week, which is a lot! I was dying; I thought I couldn’t take it… but I did! I got stronger, and so did my technique, with Derek’s help. Without Derek, I wouldn’t be the dancer that I am. He really woke me up, and taught me to work hard and be ambitious.”

With all these roles at the beginning of her time with ENB, she got a good idea about what she likes and doesn’t like. When I ask her about favourite roles, the wonderfully direct Daria says “Shall I tell you which one I hate the most first?” She can’t wait until I say yes, so continues, “It’s Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. I hate it, and wouldn’t be sorry if I never did it again in my life. It’s boring… not much story, not much emotion or a dramatic side.” I ask how important that is to her. “It’s very important. That’s why I’m so glad I’ll be dancing Manon. We don’t do enough of those kinds of emotional, dramatic ballets in ENB. I can’t wait to dance this.” But she hasn’t finished with Aurora yet: “It’s one of the most difficult classical ballets to dance, but all that effort for a boring ballet… I just don’t like it. The Rose Adagio is about 15 minutes long and yes, I am nervous before I do it… I freak out, actually.” Ironically, many people have told her that Aurora is her part.
 

Having got this off her chest, Daria turns to the roles she does like. “I love Sphinx, and I love Juliet.” I tell her that the first time I ever saw her dance, she was dancing Sphinx when she was pregnant. “I remember dancing when I was pregnant”, she laughs. “Luckily I was still in good shape!” She also loves the role of the Dame aux Camellias, which reminds her again of Manon. Clearly, Manon is in her soul at the moment. “I just can’t wait to dance this. I hope I don’t get injured or something!”

Daria’s main dancing partner for the past twelve years has been Dimitri Gruzdyev, so they have a good mutual understanding and partner each other well. He is the constant in her professional life, but she has had other wonderful partners. “I’ve danced with Irek Mukhamedov. What a fantastic experience that was. I danced Sphinx with Thomas Edur, which was amazing, truly amazing. He was one of the best partners I’ve ever danced with. Jan-Erik Wikstrom was also lovely to dance with… he made me look good!”
 

Daria obviously likes a good laugh; laughter is one of the features of our conversation. When I ask her about which choreographers she likes, she giggles “Well I want to say Chris Hampson, but I don’t want that to look weird because you’ve interviewed him, too”. When I remind her that Hampson considers her his muse, she says “Wow”, giggles again, then continues, “What I love about him is that he listens to ideas, and he gives me lots of freedom. He lets you be yourself and isn’t rigid. If he sees that something I do works better than his idea, he says ‘that’s great, do it that way instead’.” She loves Glen Tetley’s work, like Sphinx, (she’s got a letter he wrote her after performing one of his works in a frame at home), and Jiri Kylian’s. Her favourite classical role is Odette/Odile “because there is some drama there, Odile is sexy.” To my surprise, she tells me that ENB’s Giselle doesn’t sell very well “people just don’t come and see it, I don’t know why” so she has, astonishingly, only danced it five or six times in her whole career. “I haven’t had the chance to find myself in the role yet.”

In 2007, Michael Corder created the role of the Snow Queen on Daria. It is quite unusual these days for a ballet company to risk a three-act ballet, so what was it like, creating one? Another of Daria’s infectious giggles, then: “Well, first of all, there was my Statue of Liberty costume! When I did Swan Lake soon after Snow Queen, I didn’t even notice I had a headdress on because it was so light compared to the Snow Queen costume and makeup! But I didn’t know it was being created on me until we started rehearsing, then I was just sort of told, ‘this one’s yours’. It was amazing having a new full-length ballet. The last time that happened was with Michael’s Cinderella, and I wasn’t even in the Company then. So I was very lucky. It was also challenging because it was the first time I’ve ever danced an ‘evil’ role. I think I’m a nice person, so I found it difficult to be cold and nasty. Also, the choreography was very difficult, lots of steps, and very quick. Michael’s very musical, so was very picky about the steps. But I like challenges and I like dancing hard.” The ballet received mixed reviews from the critics. “I don’t care about that, I really don’t. You can’t please everyone all the time, and I mostly don’t even read the reviews.”
 

We come back to the future and Manon. With the Royal Ballet also performing it next season, how different will it be from their version, since that is the one with which most of us in the UK are familiar? “I think the structure will be more or less the same, but we are borrowing scenery from another ballet company, I can’t remember which one, and the costumes will be a bit different too.” It has always been a dream of hers to dance Manon, “I just can’t believe it’s finally happening. I hope I stay healthy.” When I say that she’ll have to be in great shape because it’s a difficult role, she disagrees with me. “I think it’s much more difficult for the boys because of all the lifts. I don’t think it’s too difficult for Manon. But for us the most exciting thing is that it’s a real story ballet, not just a fairy tale.” Daria clearly cannot wait to get her teeth into this one.

As mentioned earlier, Daria is currently creating a role in Derek Deane’s ‘Strictly Gershwin’, to be premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in June. “We’ve just started rehearsing it, so there’s not much I can tell you except that it’s different types of dances to the different Gershwin songs and music. There’s no story, just dancing to the songs, a bit like Melody on the Move, but on a large scale.” Then, almost apologetically, knowing she’d be the envy of women everywhere, “Um, I’m dancing with Friedemann Vogel”. I make appropriate envy noises, and she explains,

Daria Klimentova as photographer - invitation to her gallery viewing in 2005 © Daria Klimentova

“We danced Swan Lake together. He was here dancing with Sofiane Sylve, and when we did it in Versailles my partner got injured, and at short notice we danced together and it worked very well, so I’m delighted to be dancing with him again.”

In her brief time off in the summers, Daria runs the now-famous Prague Masterclasses, which attract students and high quality teachers from all over the world. How did these begin? “It was my husband’s idea about six years ago.”[Daria met her husband, Ian Cromer, at ENB. He is a director and stage technician, known to everyone as ‘Muppet.’ “And they call me ‘Mrs Muppetova’, laughs Daria]. “He often comes up with lots of strange ideas, but this one worked!” More laughter. “He loves Prague, and because there are summer seminars going on in many places, he had the idea of starting masterclasses there.” Start them they did, and now it is the place to go if you are a serious dancer. “We are so lucky to have Tamara Rojo coming again this summer”, adds Daria. “She was there a couple of years ago and it’s so amazing for the young dancers because she just puts her pointe shoes on and does everything at full whack. That is awesome for them, and teaches them so much.” Daria is passionate in her belief that older dancers should pass on their knowledge and experience to the younger ones. “At the end of each day there is a question and answer session with the teacher, and that’s what the students love, the chance to ask questions of these star dancers.” Currently the masterclasses are for two weeks, but one day she’d like to expand to three or four weeks, to give more dancers the chance to benefit from such wonderful teachers; at the moment, they have to turn a lot away. Feedback from those who attend is always positive, which is reward enough for Daria and Ian, and Christopher Hampson, all three of whom give their time throughout the year to organise the programme.
 

I then ask Daria to look into the future. “Well, I’ll be 37 in June, so I hope to stay at ENB for the rest of my career.” Originally she intended to stop at 40, but is revising her ideas. “My body hurts. Actually, it’s starting to scream that it can’t do this anymore. I have dodgy knees and a bad back, and I’m scared of being in pain when I’m older.” Luckily, she has another artistic outlet for when she does hang up her pointe shoes. She is a talented photographer, and already gets paid jobs in that field. She’d love to have her own studio one day. However, ballet is never far away from her. It is an integral part of her being. “I would love to teach ballet. Also, I’ve been offered jobs as Artistic Director in Czech Republic, but I said no at the time because I wanted to dance. Whether I do it in the future depends on many things, including what the possibilities are for the company itself.”

Another positive aspect of her post-dancing life will be spending time with her seven year-old daughter, Sabina, and perhaps even having another baby. “Who knows?” she winks. Her mother lives with them, in order to take care of Sabina. “We all have to work at it”, she smiles, “but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. Well, I would, but not so easily.” Sabina does not want to follow in her footsteps and be a dancer. “If she did, I’d say ‘great’ and try to help as much as I can, but she isn’t interested. It would be awful if she tried and didn’t make it like Mummy did. That would be the likelihood, and I’d hate that for her. She does love the makeup and costumes, though! She is also very musical and whenever she comes with me to class, she doesn’t watch the dancers, she watches the pianist.”
 

Having spent some time looking into a happy and varied future, Daria says goodbye, takes the long-empty cappuccino mugs and, smiling to herself, disappears down the corridor. Having spent some time with Daria, I leave the building smiling too, despite all those scratches on the car.