From the Royal Ballet to Sydney dance

Tu Tangata, Issue 25, 1 August 1985, Page 20

From the Royal Ballet to Sydney dance

Alfred Williams is a Maori dancer and a performer, who at twenty three years of age, seems finally to have shrugged off a difficult apprenticeship. He trained in New Zealand and after showing early promise that was remarked on by a visiting Margot Fontayn, it was decided to send thirteen year old Alfred to England to try for the Royal Ballet.

For his mother it was a trying time, endeavouring to encourage her son and at the same time make enough money to keep Alfred, herself and young Anthea.

Alfred’s training years at the Hammond Dance School were marked by appeals and letters back home for grants, but also by good marks. Financial aid did not come from the usual channels, the Q.E.2 Arts Council being conspicuous by its absense.

Instead help came from such unlikely sources as the Norman Kirk Trust, Purple Patch (a Hamilton group of embroiders), the promoter Hugh Lynn, an Upper Hutt City Council based public appeal, private donations, the Maori Education Foundation and Rotary clubs in Britain as well as the savings of the Williams family. Inbetween all this Alfred’s mum had

to return to New Zealand as she couldn’t get a work permit in Britain. When Alfred finally was accepted by the Royal Ballet, it was obvious that all the sacrifice had been worth it, but unfortunately more money was needed to keep him there.

After one year with the Royal Ballet, Alfred was asked to join the company but he turned down the offer. Alfred takes up his own story in an interview with Tu Tangata editor, Philip Whaanga.

“After a year of studying there I was called into the office and asked if I wanted to have three years with the company. I’d seen the company and wasn’t too happy with the stagnation in what they were doing. I felt like I didn’t want to go to classical style either so I said no.”

TT Do many people say no? “I don’t think so. You see they had been doing the same works for years, and even the new works were old. I just didn’t want to be another one in the line hoping that he gets his chance to play the prince. I gues that was disappointing to them as I had been third in my dance class. A few of us left, their hope from the lower Royal Ballet School left to go to modern dance. That year there were better dancers coming in from outside the system, we were from provincial dance schools.

“The system is a cotton wool world, you get in there when you’re eight, and you serve your years in White Lodge (the lower school) then you go to the upper school and then into the company, and that’s all the life you’re going to know, Royal Ballet.” What happened after you turned them down? “Well I didn’t have funds for the three years, they might have been able to give me a scholarship. At that time I was on the Norman Kirk Fund and Purple Patch, who are a group of ladies who have a knitwear and handicraft store in Hamilton, they were deadly.” How do you feel about lack of support from the Q.E.2 Arts Council?

“They’re not my best friends. I wanted to get the best training and then come home and show people what it is, what it’s about. I wanted to be like John Trimmer, I mean he’s the best for me, but I even thought of being Nuyreve for New Zealand.” Did you feel you achieved it? “No, because I didn’t feel totally supported. After leaving the Royal Ballet I took a job in opera ballet in Frankfurt, but I hated it. Mum called me up and asked if I wanted to go home and I said yeah.” TT What was at home for you? “Home, that’s all, my mum, my sister, Dad, the family. When I went back to Moerewa, Kawakawa, there was appreciation. But I was in sorta two minds about whether to be a dancer or just go cut gorse. I went on the dole and started going to classes again at Limbs Dance Company with Dorethea Ashford. It was good to start again. Chris Janides was in Limbs and he encouraged me to join the company. I was with

them for two years and really enjoyed the time. However I felt I had done as much as I could in Limbs and I wanted something else. I felt I wanted to extend myself not just as a dancer but also as a performer." TT Alfred, you're now with the Sydney Dance Company. What is it doing for you? "Well I needed another stage to develop. I’ve been here two and a half years and maybe I'll stay here four years and that'll be enough for me, and I'll move onto something else. This company is the company to be in, but then some people still think of us as failed classical dancers." TT You made a distinction before between dancing and performing? “Well there's a technical side to dance and then there's the performing side. You sometimes see these technical wizards who have bugger-all life in them, they can do everything you can imagine, but they just can't express themselves, they’re just machines. “I want to express myself. I can do this with the Sydney Dance Company. It's a very classical based style, a lot of modern work, gymnastic things, but a lot of the dramatics are left up to you. "If you just dance on stage in these works, it would be a complete flop. One thing I did in a nightclub called Kinsellas, I was a waiter portraying the idea of sloth, so I couldn’t just dance it, I had to create the whole character. There were a lot of moments when I wasn't dancing at all but I was just being slothful, you known trying to speak .slothfully."

TT What sort of works do you find challenging? ““Everytime you start a work it's challenging and then after a couple of months it's home sweet home. TT The Sydney Dance Company recently went to New York and received good reviews. How did you find it? “It was my first tour away with the company. I found the Americans different. They dance a lot more, but we are more theatrical, plus the dancing we do is different to their’s. We don't stick to one thing, we're not modern and we're

not classical, we do gymnastics but we're not gymnasts. American dancers have top training and have so much pressure and competition. Everything they do is perfection and real clarity and they seem to sit on top of that, so that everything happens just beneath them. When we dance we start at the bottom and work our way to the top. We look fresher because we save our best for the night and don't give everything in the rehearsals like they do." TT On this question of style, do you think being Maori makes you dance differently? A Maori dancer, Tai Royal suggested it was a more earthy style. “Yes, I can see why he would say that, but that is the Maori side. Like in New York, the style is ballet so there's no way they're going to be earthy. If you're talking about Martha Graham j

and the Le Mon Company, and modern companies, there's no way you can get more earthy than them, because their technique starts on the ground and finishes on the ground. All their movements are organic. “We're earthy because of our affin.ity with mother earth, a Maori way, while they’re earthy in an organic dance way. When I dance it's there." TT What sort of dance ideas have you developed as a result of living amongst the Maori community here in Sydney? “I've done some things with Pariare and Terangi Huata which were heading towards a modern Maori way of dancing. I've danced to the chant Kiko which my sister was calling and lately I've been thinking more of a style that would be indigenous to New Zealand. “I've still got this patriotic thing, trying to show people that this is a distinct New Zealand Maori thing, to get the Maori thing across in movement. I'm really proud of those Maoris back home doing it."

TT How does being faced with such ethnic diversity in Sydney affect you and your identity as a Maori? “I wasn't really aware of it, but people come up to me and ask me what I am, when I say a Maori, they say, ‘I thought so'. I'm not consciously aware of it, because I guess I don't look obviously Maori. It does surprise people when they find out. “In England I didn't walk around saying I was a Maori. I became like the landscape there but underneath I knew what I was. It saved me from going mad. "In Australia there is this freedom in being a Maori, in the way that people just say, ‘Oh yeah, he's a Maori', and that's it. A lot of Maori here don't even want to knowfcabout it. The funny thing is that it doesn’t matter what they do, they’re always going to be a Maori and one day it's going to catch them.*’ Editors Note: Alfred had just returned from a two week season in New York and was then to travel to China where the New Zealand Ballet Company had just finished a tour.