'Rake’s Progress’ marks lifetime of disciplined dance

Press, 7 August 1985, Page 12

'Rake’s Progress’ marks lifetime of disciplined dance

HELEN BROWN

meets dancer Jon inmmer, arusi and highly-trained athlete.

Jon Trimmer is not a word man. Words contradict one another, repeat themselves unnecessarily, and disappear just when you want to find them. The body is another matter. During 28 years of professional dancing, it has been honed into a shape that conveys emotion as eloquently as a poet’s pen. Trimmer in the black rehearsal overalls and pink leg warmers chose to sit two chairs away. Shyness, perhaps? Or were dancers used to distance? I moved closer. He didn’t shrink away. The olive eyes lit up readily. Easy to see why his friends call him Jonti with such affection. It is possible to bathe in a Trimmer smile. Yet the pale face is refined with a lifetime’s discipline strict enough to rival the toughest religious order. The monk-like effect was heightened by the shaven head. Uncomfortable in clammy bald wigs, Jon had the lot taken off for his starring role in “The Rake’s Progress.” “It’s cold,” he said, patting the prickles that seemed to be growing all too vigorously. “Suppose I’ll have to shave it every day. Thank heavens it isn’t summer — sunburn!” Based on the series of paintings by William Hogarth, the ballet follows the Rake’s pathway to ruin —

from the inheritance of a fortune to a mad house. Jon regards it as one of the greats of twentieth century ballet. Its creator, Dame Ninette de Valois, has permitted only a few companies throughout the world to perform it. When the Royal New Zealand Ballet asked three years ago, she turned them down. But after the artistic director of Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet took back favourable reports, she gladly bestowed the work on New Zealand. Jon’s role demands as much acting as dance — a formula he is happy with. He gave up the rigours of classical ballet in the late ’7os when he had “trouble” with his knees. The memory of what seemed like considerable pain rippled across his face. “There can be pain,” he said, with the measured stoicism of a priest recalling the torture rack. “But you push through and keep going.” A good body was the best attribute a dancer could have. “If you look nice, you’re half-way there. It’s what the public wants. On top of that, you can move better. You need talent, too — and the mind to use the talent. I’ve seen talent without the mind. That’s very sad.” The hardest thing was to make it look easy — but not too easy, or the audience stopped taking notice. But as a person he valued

laughter and friendship most of all. Surprisingly, there were large dollops of friendliness in the notorious world of ballet. “Once you get past the competitive stage, dancers are very close,” he said, toying with a long stick on the table. “Everyone knows what it’s like to work hard. You develop a sort of ... it begins with c and I always forget it and I can’t pronounce it properly ...” He picked up the stick and stabbed it in exasperated circles in the air. Master of the ballet, snapping about someone’s fifth position? Camaraderie? “That’s it!” he said, looking suddenly impish and swooping the stick low over my head. “Sorry!” Born in Petone, Jon started dancing in 1951 when he was 12. It was the

short-back-and-sides era when quiche was the sound your gumboots made if you trod on something. Jon decided to dance. Not because he was driven by any dragon-like competitions mother who really wanted a daughter (there were six kids in the family — enough daughters to go round). He insists it was simpler than that. His father, a carpenter, played the violin; his mother played the piano; his older sister danced. Jon just tagged along. There was teasing at primary school. He tried to hide the fact that he danced — and, yes, that might have made him more determined to succeed. It wasn’t so bad by the time he reached secondary school. He doubted it was much easier for ballet boys in the ’Bos — though people saw dancing on television all the time. It seemed strange that young men were victimised for working in a field that demanded so much physical strength. I asked if male dancers fitted the popular image of effeminancy. “There’s a much larger bulk of effeminate men outside ballet,” he said. “Anyone can go around flapping their wrists for fun.” At 18, he joined the New Zealand Ballet Company, unaware that his future wife, Jacqui Oswald from Auckland, was in the same intake. The next year, Jon won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet in London. Jon and Jacqui married in 1963. His career peaked with soloist roles in the Australian Ballet, and the Royal Danish Ballet.