sylvie guillem

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It was Christmas Eve 1984 and the end of a performance at the Paris Opéra of the favourite Russian classical ballet, Swan Lake. As the dancers took their curtain calls, the company's artistic director, Rudolf Nureyev appeared unexpectedly on stage, much to the delight of the audience. He had come to announce the promotion of that evening's Swan Queen. The willowy redhead who had just made her debut in the famous dual role of Odette/Odile was about to be made an Étoile, the company's highest rank. She was only nineteen years old, yet in three years, her rise through the ranks of the Paris Opéra Ballet had been meteoric. That evening's performance proved that a balletic star had been born whose outstanding talent was soon acclaimed, not just by the French, but the whole international world of dance. Her name - Sylvie Guillem.

Since that evening, this extraordinary ballerina has continued to to develop and refine this talent and now rightfully takes her place as one of the most brilliant and exciting - and one of the highest paid - dancers of the 20th century. She has brought much needed lustre and sparkle back into classical ballet, humour and often coquettish confidence to contemporary roles, and she liberally seasons all her performances with large doses of glamour and French chic.

Sylvie Guillem brings an electrifying presence to the stage which produces superlatives from the most of her critics and sets the box-office tills ringing. She endows her individual artistry to all her roles, fulfilling them with dazzling virtuosity and exotic theatricality. She has been blessed with today's ideal ballerina body, the Stradivarius of her art. She's tall with perfect proportions. She displays long, slim limbs and beautifully arched feet and has striking features, fringed with lustrous chestnut-red hair and luminous green eyes which penetrate to the back of the stalls.

As if this were not enough, she has been endowed with a phenomenal technique - a fluidity of line that reaches every part of her body; natural grace that permeates her movements in both classical and contemporary work; and a stunning pyrotechnical wizardry which allows her to spin in fouettes, to balance with aplomb to tackle the intricacies of swift-flowing footwork. But it is her astonishing leg extension which, while causing some consternation to a few critics, entices and enthralls her audiences. Balancing on one leg, the other effortlessly begins to unfold like a delicate petal in a time-lapse film, rising higher and higher until it makes a 180° straight line with the supporting leg. At times, it goes even further, past the ears. Some seasoned critics say that there is no place for such displays in classical ballet, that it is not aesthetic, even vulgar. Yet it has became her trademark, her individual approach to the ballet world, and it has brought the public out to see her.

Sylvie Guillem was born in Paris on 25th February 1965. Her mother was a gymnastics teacher, and the young girl, who early showed a natural aptitude and great flexibility, willingly began training. Under the watchful eyes of her mother, she developed supple strength in her upper back and arms and an elasticity in her extensions. Soon she was to be found on the competition circuit, enjoying the public's attention and reaching as far as being short-listed for the French Olympic team.

It was on an exchange programme with the Paris Opéra Ballet School - her teacher also worked with the ballet students there that Sylvie's dreams took a different turn. The director of the School, Claude Bessy, noticed the young girl and saw her potential for ballet. She offered her one of the coveted places at the School. She was 11 years old when she entered and her five years at the school developed in her a solid, structured technique and opportunities for performing at end of year galas which she enjoyed.

When she was 16, she joined the company in the corps de ballet. During the next two years she moved speedily up through the ranks. In 1983, she was suddenly thrown into the spotlight when she returned from the prestigious Varna International ballet competition with the gold medal. The French ballet public was thrilled and now focused much attention on her, scrutinising her specific talents. She was moved up a notch in the company's hierarchy to sujet and she made her first solo appearance as the Queen of the Driads in Rudolf Nureyev's version of Don Quixote.

1983 was also the year that the great Russian dancer took the helm as Artistic Director of the Paris Opéra Ballet, the world's oldest national ballet company. He immediately set about putting his seal on it by focusing on the young up and coming members whom he could groom to carry on his own personal vision of the art. For Sylvie, here was an opportunity to show off what she could do and how she could set her own individual stamp on the roles she was offered. She danced solos in several of Nureyev's own stagings of the classics and principal roles in works by such contemporary masters as Balanchine, Petit, Robbins, Forsythe, Van Danzig and Armitage, thus expanding her style and ability.

On December 19th, 1984, Sylvie was again promoted to première danseuse, but five days later, after her performance in Nureyev's own production of Swan Lake, she became his youngest étoile. Principal roles followed with Nureyev himself often showing her of as his partner. She danced his Juliet, Kitri, Raymonda.

In 1986 she created the title role of his Hollywood-based version of Cendrillon (Cinderella) (above) in which she not only shared the stage with huge models of Betty Grable and King Kong but had to ham it up in a tap routine, dressed as Charlie Chaplin. Later that year, French television filmed her dancing her pristine Auber Grand Pas Classique a technically challenging divertissement but which she performed authoritatively, stressing the purity of her line, musicality, and brilliant control.

One of the vital young choreographers who recognised and used her talent was William Forsythe. In 1987 at the Paris Opéra, she created the leading role in his now contemporary classic with In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated (left, with Jonathan Cope). Though Forsythe uses classical ballet language, he reinvents it in complex unfamiliar ways, disrupting one's usual traditional assumptions of theatre and dance.

In the Middle started life as a 30 minute piece but was later extended to form the central section of a full-length work Impressing the Czar. In it, Forsythe pushes his movements as far as possible making them look dangerously challenging for the dancers. It was an ideal role for Sylvie to discover and demonstrate another aspect of her talent.

Released from the constricting corset of classicism, she was able to catapult her body fearlessly into the wild, speedy attacks of the choreography, contorting it supplely with required lunges, off-balance angles and geometric stances - even her hair was loosened in a natty 1920s bob - and performed to the pulsating music of Thom Willems. Such productions kept Sylvie very much in the limelight. The world was now before her pink-satin clad feet in awe of her kaleidoscopic range of versatility.