© John Ross Hatley in reviews recent RB reviews Simonetta Dixon reviews

It’s a fine day, and the much loved and missed ex-Royal Ballet First Soloist Belinda Hatley arrives at the house on the river with a smile as warm as the sun.

“It’s so lovely and peaceful here”, she says, and as we settle down with our coffees she tells me how it all started in Shoreham-by-Sea….

“My mother was a huge Fonteyn and Nureyev fan, so she thought it would be nice if we did those sort of baby ballet classes in the church hall. I loved the classes until it started getting serious, and I was getting prodded around and had to behave. From then on, I screamed every time I went to ballet class so I stopped. That’s when I was 6. Then, when I was about 8 or 9, I decided I wanted to go back.”

It was a ballet for which she would be most fondly remembered that gave the young Belinda the inspiration to take up ballet again. “Mum took me to see La Fille mal gardee, and then bought me the record. I used to play it and dance around to it all over the house. Who would have thought that one day I’d dance Lise at Covent Garden!”

She auditioned for White Lodge at age 12, the last year possible to get into the Junior School. “I got in. Mum and I were open-mouthed. So off I went to White Lodge, but had loads of catching up to do because all these other girls had already been doing it seriously for years.” How did she catch up? “Well funnily enough, Darcey Bussell had also started in the 3rd year, even though she was a year ahead of me. So every evening we would go to the salon together and practice.”

Life at the RBS as an adolescent was tough, with a mix of hormones, insecurity, competitiveness and hurtful comments being a part of everyday life. I suggest that this might have been good preparation for being a professional dancer. “Oh yes, definitely. Some of those comments have stayed with me my whole life.” Comments such as? “Well, I used to have very wild hair, and braces, and acne, so people were always commenting on the size of my bun, or how I looked. One or two of my teachers used to say ‘Just look at the state of you. Can’t you do something about how you look?’ It gives you a bit of a victim mentality that stays with you throughout your career.” Despite the unpleasant side of things, she thinks the experience really toughened her up.

In 1988 Belinda graduated into the Company, joining as a member of the Corps de Ballet. “I was very busy in those early years, quickly moving up into demi-soloist roles such as pas de trois.” After a couple of years, she was promoted to First Artist. Soloist followed, then in 1997 First Soloist, a position in which she remained until she left the Company in 2007.

Belinda is often referred to as ‘The best Principal who never was’. She gives a sardonic chuckle when I mention this. It has often been said that she never attained the highest level in the Company because of injuries. She believes her injuries were caused because she was pushing herself so much. Why? “No matter how many three-act classical ballets I danced the lead, I just wasn’t getting there. So I pushed myself hard, and it was the wrong thing to do. I got into an unhealthy ‘I’ll show them, I must work harder’ kind of mindset. It was all ‘bash bash bash’. I was dancing pas de trois, pas de six, Aurora, other classical ballets, and you just can’t be injured in those. You can get away with it perhaps in roles like Larisch, but not all the classical stuff that was my repertoire at the time. Because of the injuries, I did miss out.”

Many, indeed all (with the exception of Darcey Bussell) of the RB’s female Principals in the past few years have been non-British. What is ‘wrong’ with the British dancers? “Lack of self belief. It’s like everything else in Britain; we always think that others are better than we are at anything. It’s lack of confidence. It’s the Tim Henman syndrome, I really believe that. I know we are the RB, I know we are in London, but I didn’t have a problem with it. It’s great to try to promote a British dancer if you have them, and” she smiles, “they had them…they had me, they had Sarah [Wildor], they had Gillie [Revie]. They had many of us there who had a wealth of training behind them. What’s important is not the nationality, but whether or not they have training in the British style. Of course we’ve had foreign people with the RB for years…look at Nureyev, Makarova, Guillem, etc. If I were Monica Mason of course I’d be saying to these wonderful dancers ‘come to us’. But the important thing is that they are cast in the right places. Everybody loves watching these wonderful dancers like Carlos [Acosta], but it’s the style issue that is the problem.”

The ‘English style’, particularly Ashton, is one of the things for which Hatley is justly known. I put it to her that now she is gone, it is Marianela Nunez to whom she has passed the baton. “Oh, goodness, yes. She really understands Ashton, and that’s not only because she can do it, it’s because she loves it. She is a real star and could dance in any company in the world, but she is where she wants to be. Also, she works a lot with Lesley [Collier] and has learned a lot from her. She wants to embrace that style, which is why she is here. She’s just brilliant. That is one of the advantages of having so many Principals, as the RB does. They can be cast in what they are particularly good at, and not be expected to do everything. Of course, as a dancer, you want to try everything, that’s normal.”

We move on to discussing where the RB is at the present time. I mention that Monica Mason [AD of the Royal Ballet] is between a rock and a hard place. She is stuck somewhere between being a guardian of the RB’s history and heritage, and having to move the Company forward into the 21st century by commissioning new ballets and catering for a broader audience. “Oh goodness, what a terrible job it is” sighs Belinda. “I mean, it’s a wonderful job, a fabulous job, but I wouldn’t want to be in it. It is truly thankless, whether it is her or anyone else.” Belinda had three different ADs during her time in the Company: Anthony Dowell, Ross Stretton and Mason. What were the main changes through those three Directors’ tenures? She pauses to consider the question for a moment, then chooses her words carefully: “I think the main change has been the way they’ve just lifted the lid of the Company and plopped people on the top. Also, the main body of the Company, the corps…” Here she becomes passionate in what she is saying. “The corps has changed. In my day, they were almost all graduates of the school and, given rehearsal time, could all do solos and were really proud and passionate about being in the corps, and wanting to be the best you could possibly be. At the end of the day, I firmly believe that the success in a company like the RB is largely due to the style and body of its dancers, and their pride in the company. But what many of them find difficult is after being there for so long, others are brought in through all the levels: First Artist, Soloist, First Soloist. If it’s a great talent you are putting in at the top you can understand, but when I started it was very rare to have someone just plopped into a Soloist position.”

We move on to discuss Kenneth MacMillan. “It’s just painful to see someone dance MacMillan if they can’t act. That’s one of the things that was so fantastic about Kenneth. He could just look at a dancer and say ‘you know, she’d be perfect for so-and-so’ and do you know what, he was right every time. It was terrifying working with him, really, really scary, because he was an absolute genius. You were always on your toes because you never knew what he was going to say or suggest. He was so good for the Company at all levels. He gave everyone equal attention, so for example if you were ‘just’ a townsperson in Romeo and Juliet, he’d say ‘so what’s your story? Why are you here in the square? What did you have for breakfast?’ Now we don’t have creative geniuses like that. I just feel so, so glad and lucky that I was around when Kenneth was, I really do.”

Belinda is very lucky to have had a lot of coaching from Donald McLeary and Lesley Collier, as well as Lynn Seymour for Mayerling and Isadora, and is delighted that Jonny Cope is on the coaching team as well. “It’s great for the boys to have that wealth of experience.”

During her 19 years with the RB, Belinda danced most of the leading roles in the repertoire. When I ask what her favourite ones are, she has no hesitation. “Giselle, definitely. Especially the second act. If I could do that again tomorrow, I definitely would. It is such a joy on so many levels. Lise was another. And Larisch. I loved every moment of that.” I am glad she mentions this, because she finally got to dance this role in Mayerling just a few months before she retired, and had all-round great reviews for her performance. “It was just fascinating to do and this might sound really corny, but I finally felt that I had wings on the stage, and so totally at home in the role. It was everything I’d ever wanted to do in being somebody else. I would have loved to dance the classics again in my final couple of years. What I learned from doing more of the ‘acting’ roles I could have brought to those classical roles and given much more rounded performances. I had got too bogged down in technique. I wasn’t a Marianela and it was difficult. In the last couple of years I would have relaxed and found things much easier. By this time I had accepted that I was never going to become a Principal, so I was enjoying the performances more. OK, perhaps the arabesques were a bit lower, but I was thinking ‘God, I used to make such a meal out of this, and actually it’s not that difficult!”

Belinda and her husband of 13 years, Michael Nunn (an ex-dancer with the RB and now one of the Ballet Boyz along with William Trevitt) have a four year-old son, George, who is autistic. She went through lots of soul searching before finally handing in her notice. “I’d been considering it for two or three years,” she remembers. “However, each time I discussed it with someone, I’d end up sobbing. I thought that this was telling me something: you can’t go if you’re feeling like this just thinking about it. Plus, I knew I had more to give. And in the last two years, it came, like Isadora and Larisch.” At the beginning of 2007, Belinda decided that this was finally the right time to go. “I was having a ball, and I wanted to leave while I was still enjoying myself. You can’t grow old in my rep. I wanted to have happy memories, and I do. Also, when I left I was dancing at my best.”

Belinda’s final night with the Company at Covent Garden was in June 2007…the same last night as Darcey Bussell, with whom she had practiced all those years ago. “It’s strange how things work out”. She danced Symphonic Variations, which was meaningful to her because it was one of her first major roles. “I’m so sentimental and romantic, it’s ridiculous…but I felt that in finishing with this, I’d come full circle.” Although she wasn’t nervous to dance it that night, she wasn’t sure whether she was going to get through it without crying. Her voice cracks as she remembers, “It was so lovely to dance that night. I was with Laura [Morera] and we had been paired so many times, and I felt so comfortable with her. It makes me cry just thinking about it.” She was also very moved by the reception she was given. “It was truly amazing and I will never forget it.” Was she irked at having to share her final moment with Darcey Bussell, whom most of the non-regular audience had come to see? She pauses, then: “It just kind of made me giggle. I resigned, and then Darcey told me she had also resigned. Then that we were dancing our final times on the same night. I had that ‘always a bridesmaid’ feeling. But, it was an honour to go out with her, and have people talking about me in the same breath as her. For the Company it was sort of the end of a mini era because we had been to school at the same time, and had been through so much together.”

Now that she has been out for a year, has she reflected on her favourite partners? A sharp intake of breath, then: “Oh my gosh, that’s impossible to answer. I’ve been sooooo lucky. I remember dancing Fille with Carlos and feeling like a breadcrumb. An amazing feeling. The kiss in Fille is one of the longest there is, and my friends were standing in the wings laughing their heads off and giving me the thumbs-up sign. He has a real love of fun on the stage, which is infectious. You just feed off it. You can see it when he dances with Tamara and Marianela. Irek [Mukhamedov] asked me to dance Aurora with him in Beauty, and I was so honoured. I’ll cherish that forever. Another brilliant partner was Jonny Cope. God he was good. An incredibly talented partner and lovely chap. I danced with my husband which was HORRENDOUS.” She giggles. “I love him to bits but it didn’t work. I feel sorry for whoever was coaching us. We used to argue and bicker. He is a lovely partner, but for me, it was just too close! I have to mention Yohei [Sasaki] too. I danced quite a few classics with him, such as Coppelia and Nutcracker, and we knew each other very well so I could really trust him.”

Nowadays, Belinda concentrates mostly on taking care of George. “I really wanted and needed to be there for him. Of course, any parent wants to do the best for their child, but in this kind of case special care is required.” Michael and Belinda educate George at home, and have worked hard to create a fun, stimulating environment for him.

The last time Belinda danced onstage was in Five Brahms Waltzes at the re-opening of the South Bank Centre in London in the summer of 2007. Will she dance again? “Well, never say never, but I will say never to putting pointe shoes on again. I’m too old!” She had been to a dance class the week before, for the first time in ages and “I started to recognize those old feelings. I felt energized and thought ‘this is Belinda. Part of her dances’. Keeping a part of myself also makes me a better mum, and after all my greatest aim is to be the best mum I can be to George.”

What of the future? Can she see herself teaching or coaching, especially at the RB? “Oh I would love to. Absolutely love to. I’d love to coach professionals, but there are many dancers who want to do that! I’d love to coach the First Artist/Soloist ranks. They are positions with which I was familiar for many years.”

Because Michael is now the main breadwinner, Belinda is delighted that the Ballet Boyz are getting work. “They might dance for another couple of years, but let’s face it, they’re no spring chickens” she laughs. “They love the theatre and are getting involved in many aspects of it so I think they’ll be fine. I really hope so, otherwise we’ll have to downshift and grow carrots or something.”

A vision of this lovely dancer spending her time pulling carrots makes me chuckle, and then, a sign that perhaps this is not for her; Anthony Dowell walks past the window on the sunny towpath. Serendipity indeed.