Josephine Jewkes, “Time to reflect...”
	Josephine Jewkes, formerly a dancer with Rambert and an ENB Principal, writes about her new life following a hip injury... Link to the previous column Link to later column. June 99 The image on the Sunday Times article "Smile though your heart is breaking" sums it up. A sea of hopeful young women, the hierarchy marked by the size of their tiara, surrounding a solitary man who is also their director. The article within certainly had a ring of truth which is all too unusual in writings about the mysterious workings of a ballet company. As always it was heavier on the blood and pain than on the glory and euphoria, but that is the reality for those dancing in the corps de ballet. My approach to the eight years I spent there was to consider every performance as 'money in the bank' in terms of stamina, accuracy and detail which I then hoped to 'spend' on any future chances to dance solo. Also, if not involved in a quick change, I would study the soloists and principals as they danced in order to put that in the 'bank' too. Knowing that I was there at a time when the policy of Peter Schaufuss was to promote from within the ranks - whereas Derek Deane prefers to import 'ready-made' from outside (a sort of "Here's one I didn't have to prepare earlier" approach). His remarks on pear-shaped Brits are still reverberating, but after five or six years' Directorship he still has not managed to produce any of his ideal-type dancers from the English National Ballet School. Why not? Should he not lead by example? The company classes he gives should also be bearing fruit by now with a crop of polished youngsters ready to take on soloist parts, instead of which it seems that about one-quarter of the company is leaving! I understand and agree with his concern about English training which is old-fashioned and weak but determination, intelligence, inspiration and consistently good coaching can do wonders and for that you need love: love and respect for the art form from all concerned and Mr. Deane has an unfortunate manner which seems to take all the joy out of what should be an artistic endeavour - not a sport, not a science but a very personal and intense endeavour. There is something perverse about it all for an ambitious corps de ballet girl whose colleagues are close and feel like family: they are her protection (safety in numbers) and yet her competition, she must measure her steps to the girl in front and yet let her talent shine out. This situation leads to extraordinary tensions which need to be handled with understanding in order to keep these to a minimum. Once the morale of a company drops then nobody benefits and that includes those out front in the auditorium. Contrast this with the dancers in the Bolshoi who barely have enough money to eat and yet in five hard years nobody has resigned to take up a job in the affluent West (and even in wobbly financial times none has been sacked either). Interesting. Is their reluctance to leave because they now realise the Western MacBallet approach is at odds with the way they have grown up? NDT's visit was good to see though I found it odd to see the same dozen faces in piece after piece even though the company contains at least three times more dancers. I thought the programme was variable, but the final piece "Symphony of Psalms" held its place as a luminous classic and made me ache with longing to dance again as I saw the passion with which they invested Kylian's beautiful movements. Leaving the final bars of Stravinsky to resonate in the fading light showed (to me) the respect the choreographer felt for such sublime music. It certainly helped me to see a choreographer rehearse their own works because so much of them and their personality goes into every movement, for example Kylian's quiet voice and subtle, sensitive choice of words told me as much as his gestures, and I realised that his essence is that of pin-sharp, delicate attack whereas the poor late Per Jonsson seemed to need a febrile, unpredictable and spontaneous energy throughout his piece. These impressions are only my personal ones but I certainly found them helpful. As for me, I have my funding through to start my Landscape Architecture course and so have started a collection of gardening and architecture books to replace the outgoing ones on ballet. (My) Nature abhors a vacuum!
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