Michael O'Hare (continued)

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01 June 2007

Even with such experience, however, there are times when Michael has to teach new roles to the company that he himself is having to learn the choreography for at the same time. 'If I'm dancing a role and teaching it as well, my priority is to teach it to the others first, and then my second priority is performing it myself. Many of the roles the ballet staff will have learned before. If we need them, we have the tools of notation and videos to recap any details that we might have forgotten, but obviously if you've done a role, and you've done it lots, a lot of it is there is your body memory, and it just comes back really quite quickly.'

Michael pauses, considering the ability of many of the dancers to store choreography in their 'body memories', allowing them to hear a piece of ballet music and automatically launch into the relevant steps without consciously thinking about each individual movement. 'It's funny,' he says, 'having talked about how it might be easier to teach dancers roles that you have previously danced, in fact sometimes it's very different because you have to think backwards.' Explaining this idea he continues: 'with something you haven't done before, you're starting from scratch anyway, so you can approach it from a teaching point of view'. If you've done it before, however, it’s easy to say 'I know that, I can teach that', but in fact it's in your body rather than in your head. You have to think backwards to when you first learned it, and break it down in order to pass it on to someone else.'

Giving an example of the two scenarios, Michael points to two of the ballets that make up the triple bill that BRB perform in Birmingham and Salford this summer.

'Although the Company performed Nine Sinatra Songs last year', he explains, 'it was part of the split tour where we perform in the North East and the South West at the same time, and it was on the opposite end of the tour from me. Pineapple Poll, however, is the one I'm really familiar with, and was involved with when we did it last year.'

It soon becomes clear that there are few male roles in the ballet that Michael has not in fact performed at one time or another: 'Belaye is a role I've done, and also Jasper, and the part of one of the sailors as a youngster - a lot! - it was one of the first things I ever did.'

We comment on his obvious fondness for the ballet. 'I know it so well' he explains with a smile, 'it's a charming piece, and very much reflects the time it was created, and when given energy and enthusiasm it works so well. It's the fun of it, and the music - Gilbert and Sullivan - which might not be familiar to a lot of dancers today, but is very danceable. It's very light-hearted, and very likable, but they're actually really difficult as well, some of these parts. You might dismiss the steps as less technical or whatever, but actually, given the full energy that it needs, it’s quite challenging - Just because it’s light-hearted, it doesn’t mean it’s easier to do!'

ENDS

Information on all current performances of the ballets mentioned in this article can be found by clicking on the underlined show titles.

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