27 November 2009

Marion Tait, the Company's Ballet Mistress, discusses each of the dancers performing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker this weekend.

Nao Sakuma

'Nao is superb and she's danced Sugar Plum many times before. She's partnered with Chi with whom she's danced it many times. Peter Wright started saying last year more than ever, that he wants this relationship between the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince to be one that's directly as a result of the story that's happened before, which is 'Clara is transformed into the Sugar Plum Fairy'. She's not suddenly an experienced virtuoso ballerina, so she's still got to have this youthful sense of awe and wonderment.

'Nao is someone who gets that. It's very easy for someone like Nao who does all these principal roles to look a little too assured. So it's keeping that train of thought throughout that she's Clara, rather than a fully-fledged ballerina. This is interesting for the Prince to think about too, that he's guiding her through all this for the first time.

'Very often regular partners can become very familiar with one another, which can be good or bad. The hardest part is to keep re-creating that magic between the two of them when dancers are so used to one another!'

Ambra Vallo

'Ambra has done the role so many times, but she always looks excited - whether that's the Italian passion in her I don't know!

'The more experienced you get, the more you focus on classical perfection, and sometimes Ambra gets to a performance and starts thinking, "Oh I must think of detail, and technique and beautifully placed positions", but I don't want her to look too academic. It's important to remember all these things, but it mustn't take over in your head. I don't think Ambra will have any trouble with this in Nutcracker though because she always looks so spontaneous and fresh. And it is Christmas after all!

'While the Prince is quite a difficult role for the boys, the Sugar Plum Fairy is even harder. It has a long solo, and it's pretty non-stop with not a lot of breathers. The Prince's solo is quite short, so Sugar Plum doesn't get long to get her breath back and then she's straight into the coda, one that involves a lot of fouettés, so it's a hard number – crash crash, bang bang! But Ambra thankfully has a lot of fire, perfect for this role.'

Elisha Willis

'Elisha did a beautiful rehearsal with Peter the other day, and he particularly noted that she was very clean and precise and musical. Now we're working on the magic that comes in performance.

'Elisha's always SO good theatrically, particularly in more dramatic roles like Giselle, or in roles that she's created, like that of Roxane in Cyrano. But I think she finds it harder to personalise the classics rather than just perform them as an academic exercise. Maybe it's because there's less acting in The Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker, and so it can appear that there's slightly less of a character to get your teeth into. But again, we must continue with this focus that it's the culmination of Clara's story, and maybe that'll hit the spot for Elisha.

'The Sugar Plum Fairy will always be personalised by the performer though, because they're all individual dancers. There's such expression in the way that legs and arms move through space. You could encourage them all to think the very same things, but it will become that person's individual interpretation. You don't have to say "make it individual" because it always will be!'

Momoko Hirata

'For such a very delicate, petite little dancer Momoko has feelings of grandeur in the best possible sense. We have to work on pulling her back a little bit, so that she doesn't look too grand in the Sugar Plum pas de deux. She is a very expansive dancer, very expansive and beautiful.

'Some other dancers might need a bit more coaxing to give more, give more, because Sugar Plum is such a very exhausting role. The initial impulse may be to hold back and play safe to get through it, but from experience I can tell you that if you hold back then it makes you more tired!

'I keep telling them too, you may be a ballet dancer, but you need to breathe as a civilian, and to remember that to walk round the stage with your back to the audience, you don't need to hold your breath!

'For the more technical sections it is necessary to have a little bit of tension and control in your body, and maybe control your breathing, but during those inbetween steps which aren't so technically demanding, you really need to remember to breathe!'

Click here to read about the other four dancers performing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy this season!