My prime concern is the corps de ballet and the female soloists, so that means taking rehearsals. I coach the girls when they've been injured, and sometimes if they want to improve in a certain area. I also ensure that when they go on stage, they look absolutely impeccable, that they take care of their shoes, their hair and their make-up.
I give notes constantly β I watch every performance, so it's quality control. I've recently acquired a pair of magnificent goggles, so that I can see every last detail. I had an extraordinarily long career as a dancer β I danced professionally for 30 years β and it's always a difficult time when you stop dancing yourself. It's almost like a bereavement, when you've danced all your life and then lose the one thing that seems the norm.
I'd done quite a bit of teaching, and run my own little ballet company, so I had experience of putting together productions and of hiring and firing. As a dancer, I'd had pieces created for me, so I was used to working with choreographers. Basically, I'd had all the experience necessary to help and nurture younger dancers, and to pass on my knowledge to them. The long days, the long working hours. Sometimes I can be here from 10am to It sounds wonderful to watch every performance, but it's very hard to come to it afresh.
When you see a dancer at the height of their career have a really serious injury from which they may not recover. I remember when I was at London City Ballet , a colleague of mine had a car accident and broke her neck, and never made it back.
We start training at such an early age, and when you do that, to lose out at the zenith is hard. It's a great title! Most of what they say is not suitable for print, because of the "mistress" part. But they ask lots of questions because most people don't know what the job involves. We usually start with the daily ballet class at After class, we usually have a minute break, and then we start rehearsing. If there's a performance, we'll stop rehearsing at 5.
