Nureyev And Fonteyn's Great Partnership

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30433, 6 May 1964, Page 2

Nureyev And Fonteyn's Great Partnership

The coming of the Russian dancer. Nureyev, to the Royal Ballet had been a great stimulus to the company, said Miss Beryl Jackson, a Royal Academy of Dancing examiner, in Christchurch yesterday.

Since Nureyev had become her partner, Dame Jlargot Fonteyn has risen to even greater heights— at an age when most ballerinas were beginning to decline. "Together they are a quite outstanding partnership,” she said.

Dame Margot still danced ■regularly and did a great deal of touring all over the world, making special appear-, antes. “She leads a very strenuous life and maintains tremendous interest in anything associated with the! Royal Academy of Dancing, of which she is president. The R A_D_ of course. is quite a separate body from the Royal Ballet, though both are on the friendliest terms. - Miss Jackson said. The constant mental and physical activity required by ballet could produce a person of the calibre of Dame Margot- who was able to keep up this lively interest in administration as well as in actual dancing, she said. • Michael Somes, who partnered Dame Margot for many years including their tour of New Zealand, has now retired from dancing and is teaching men. He recently devised a new syllabus for the boys' solo seal examination for the R.A.D. The training of male dancers was a very rigorous one and most male ballet dancers could outlast boxers and hurdlers in stamina, she added. “A wrestler, who has trained in ballet is now walking off with most of the

prizes in England.” she said. “I have seen him on television and have noticed the number of ballet movements he uses to extricate himself from various holds. His opponent is always the first to be exhausted." Many English ballet dancers were not able to get work in big companies, but because their training taught: them control as nothing else does, they were well equipped and able to adapt themselves to other careers—in television and musical shows, for instance. "The high percentage of dancers who have taken the trouble to gain qualifications in the R_AJ>. find openings as teachers all over the world as the academy is a vast organisation.” she said. Miss Jackson trained as a ballet dancer in Manchester, passing the advanced R_AD examination, and when at the solo stage broke an ankle badly and had to give up professional dancing as a career. Happy Aeeident “It broke my heart at the time, but it was a fortunate accident in disguise. But for that I would not have had the great experience I’ve had in other aspects of the theatre,” she said. “Dancers are so busy they; don’t have tune for anything'

else, and in these days with;television work offering they need an intimate knowledge of .other forms of theatre. Actors are being asked to 1 dance and dahcers are being ■ required to act, though this : does not apply to purely • classical dancers.” Miss Jackson enrolled at : the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art when her ankle recovered. gaining a diploma. • She did repertory and tele- • vision work; but has now returned to ballet in partner- • ship with her first teacher at their studio in Oxford. • A member of the major examinations committee of the Royal Academy Of Dancing, she is conducting examina- ! tions in Christchurch this week. After a month in New Zealand she will spend the ■ rest of the year examining : ’ for the academy in Australia. 3