Jarkko Lehmus Diary

Another Day, Another Dollar

Dame Mouserink and her son have bitten dust and Marie has got her Prince; Herr Drosselmeyer has done his job for the last time for a few years. Another tour of duty is over and tearful eyes and illegitimate children in far-away ports have been left behind; only the memories of sweet perfume and silk lingerie lingers.

'The Nutcracker: Re-visited' was a great success, even greater than the first time around: auditoriums brimming with smiling faces enjoying themselves and us dancers swooping around the stage like there was no tommorrow. Like any 'Director's Cut' or 'Special Edition' this slightly-tweaked-to-keep-it-interesting -version offered more of everything we hold dear, namely sex, lies, violence, magic and romance.

Unfortunately the end of the run also means that a lot of the weird and wonderful visiting artists and old stalwarts are leaving for greener pastures: hubert Essakow is off to join Rambert; Justin Meissner is just, er, off; Little Laura Beth Bailey is heading back to Stoke; Florence Baz is on the open market as well and long serving Andy Ross is hanging up his tights and concentrating in photography. The audition process is in full swing and there are no less than 14 contracts up for grabs. That'll be another big upheaval of the company then. Plenty of fresh faces to be initiated... I'll do my best to keep you up to date of the various comings, goings and going ons. On a brighter note: Paul Liburd was awarded the gong of the best male comtemporary dancer by Critics' Circle. My boy's a bit good at what he does.

The next season is waiting eagerly in the wings already. For me the main event is creating a new piece by Ashley and reviving his '32 Cryptograms'. We'd better be on it for Robert Moran, the composer of the 32's score, is flying over from the US of A to check out the company and scribble some unintelligible notes for the programme. Other pieces pieces on the schedule are Balanchine's 'Four Temperaments', which I'm still not pretty enough to do, and Ashton's 'Facade', of which I know next to nothing about. I plead "guilty" for all the charges of ignorance hurled at me.

We flew back from Belfast this morning and I'm off to New York tomorrow to spend the holiday week, and my hard-earned, in style stomping the streets of Harlem. I've never been to the States before so am looking forward to it. I've also been busy booking my summer holiday in Thailand. Flights and hotels have been pretty cheap for some reason... I'll be spending most of my time in Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city, learning the finer points of thai-massage and -boxing with a little cultural excursion to Bangkok thrown in for good measure. It's a hard life, but somebody's got to live it, eh? My excuse is that I spent so much of my early career as a gun-for-hire, or a loose cannon if you wish, so if I wasn't working I wasn't eating. This world of paid holidays still feels a bit alien to me, but I'm not complaining. When the iron is hot I intend to pound it with all my might and travel as much as possible to open up my little mind.

Posted by Jarkko at February 6, 2005 10:50 PM