sylvie guillem

dancing to her own tune

Some people have found Sylvie Guillem too big for her ballet shoes, but others have hailed her as the first woman to bring feminism to classical ballet, which is a charge that doesn't offend her at all. "I am not a completely stubborn person," she says. "But I have views. There are things I cannot do, costumes I cannot wear. When I have taken stands on things, it is because I have thought carefully about them. Choreographers tend to treat ballet dancers like kids they can manipulate." Guillem says that when she first started watching classical ballet she had seen that a lot of things were wrong with it. It was stultified. Its traditions had not evolved.

"Then, when I started performing on stage myself, I knew that something better could be done. I couldn't do it the way I was told. There was no soul in it. It didn't say anything. I felt strong emotion on stage. Clever people let you adapt the choreography, let you do it in your own instinctive way. But stupid people think they are being told they are wrong. It is quite simple, really. If you're not comfortable with what you are being asked to do, you cannot do it."

Sylvie Guillem reminds me of someone else I interviewed recently for this magazine, the great Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli. They both have reputations for being "difficult", for saying no to roles they don't feel comfortable in, for arguing about aspects of a production which don't directly concern them. But neither of them is remotely vain or arrogant. They aren't the kind of stars who complain about the size of their limousines or the bleakness of their dressing-rooms. They are, however, intelligent people with high standards and confidence in their own abilities who insist on their opinions being taken into account. They aren't content just to go on stage and do their stuff. They want to be part of a team effort to create the best possible performance for the public. In short, they represent a very modern kind of star which some traditional opera and ballet producers find hard to take.

Guillem herself has always gone her own way regardless of the status quo, and she masterminds her own career without help of a manager. "A dancer has a very short working life and I want to handle things directly and not lose time through managers," she says. "The fact is I know myself better than anyone and I want to have control over my image." Her single-mindedness has earned her the reputation of a prima donna, but she prefers to think of it as strength of character.

"What I hate," she says, "is being manipulated or obliged to do something against my will. If other people think me a virago because I say loudly what they think silently then I don't dispute it. I've always tried to give the best of myself and I won't accept people who won't do the same. I hate what I call the 'civil servants' of dance who perform without emotion."

Guillem admits to enjoying confrontations and to feeling frustrated when other people didn't respond. She was even gratified when they lost their tempers. "I am impetuous, very Latin," she says. "When you have a confrontation, you need someone else to have it with. It's a way of getting things out. It is nice to speak loud. I like it when things are clear. That way, you don't lose time and energy." She says she never had ambitions to become a famous ballerina. "All I ever wanted was to be excited every time I went on stage. The pleasure of being on stage is to perform with ever greater freedom, to be braver and braver, to give more and more," she explains. On the influence attributed to her by the director of the Kirov Ballet, she says: "I think it is nice for the younger generation of ballet dancers to see that the steps are not everything, that what ballet is about, above all, is emotion."

That is why Sylvie Guillem finds Swan Lake "very difficult and frustrating". Because the story, in her opinion, is so weak, she cannot get to feel much emotion when she is dancing it. "When, in ballet, the emotion passes through the character, that's OK," she says. "But when you have to generate it only through technique, that is very difficult." She says she will not dance Swan Lake ever again after the year 2000, when her present contract with the Royal Ballet expires.

Despite the difficulties presently being experienced by the Royal Ballet, which is without a home and afflicted by endless controversy about its funding, she continues to admire the company. "It is a very professional company," she says. "And I like its strong theatrical and acting tradition, its interest in telling a story." She says she respects the Royal Ballet, but that it isn't perfect and she wishes it could do more. "They do what they can," she says. "But I wish they had more money. I wish they would open their doors to new choreographers, just to stimulate the company a bit more."

Of her male ballet partners, she talks most warmly of Jonathan Cope. "He's really nice," she says. "He has no ego at all. In fact, for his sex, he should have a bit more ego. But he's very strong and he's very good, and I have total confidence in him. I also like the way he responds to me. He really behaves like a man with a woman."

Since Nureyev's death, she feels, dance has lost its way. "There is no expression," she laments. "At the moment both dancers and choreographers lack intelligence, imagination and freedom. Thank God there are exceptions like Maurice Bejart." A shared sense of daring, vitality and innovation make the two a perfect team "like pingpong players", says Guillem. "Many choreographers are concerned only with the movement and not with the personality of the dancer. When we met I was stagnating under the load at the Paris Opéra. He unveiled my own personality."

Since joining the Royal Ballet she has imposed her formidable personality to good effect, gradually revolting against the strictures of the classical tradition "It's not classicism I object to, but conservatism," she says, "How are we to know exactly how a ballet was conceived originally? I don't want always to be a dissenting voice, but if you don't contribute your own views you are just a puppet that moves." She is equally dismissive of modern ballet. "Dance needs two reforms," she says. "At the moment there are two ghettoes: classical ballet and modern dance, both of which lack any openness of spirit. They should understand that their survival depends on their ability to communicate and to respect each other. The second reform should be humanisation. Modern choreographers are obsessed with theory and pay little heed to human relations or indeed, the dancers."

Sylvie Guillem says it was fate that brought her to London and she cannot imagine ever rejoining the Paris Opéra where she began her career. "There is no reason to go back there. It wouldn't mean anything," she says. She spends six to seven months a year in London, and likes it here. "The people are more civilised than in France," she says. "They smile at you in the shops. They say please and thank you and goodbye."

She says that ballet dancers are fortunate in that even the most famous and successful of them are hardly ever recognised in the street. This means she can live unobtrusively in a place like London, where she cohabits in Kensington with her long-standing boyfriend, the French fashion photographer Gilles Tapie.

Both in London and at her other home at St Paul de Vence in the south of France, Sylvie Guillem is a busy gardener. "Gardening is therapeutic," she says. "It is very healthy for the mind, and it feels very nice to get dirty. And it is magic to see something grow." She has said in the past that she plans to devote herself to gardening when she gives up dancing.

But when might that be? She is only 33 and ought to be able to carry on for a good while yet. She says she eats everything and likes to drink good wine, but her physique has not suffered. Only "in hard periods" did she restrict herself to a diet of eggs, cereal, meat and water, she says. A decision to give up dancing would be determined by "the balance between the pleasure you get from it and the pleasure you give," she says. "At the moment I am getting more and more pleasure."

And, of course, the pleasure she gives to audiences all over the world has never been higher than it is now. "You must always try to win audiences over," she says. She is especially proud of the success she had with Japanese audiences last year, when she spent five months dancing in Japan. "They were incredible," she says. "And young Japanese women wrote me beautiful letters about how touched they had been. They wrote in a most poetic way. You could tell they had spent a lot of time on those letters."

We have finished our tea, and it is time for me to go, as Sylvie Guillem has arranged to meet someone else in the café in a few minutes' time. I say goodbye and go to find my car. Driving back past the café, I notice Sylvie Guillem, all alone, leaning casually against a wall. Hardly anyone gives her a glance as they walk by. She has just popped out for a moment to have a cigarette.

Main picture: In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, with Jonathan Cope

Reproduced from ballet.magazine. © ballet.co.uk