Last week I came across a wonderful interview of David Hallberg, at the present artistic director of the Australian Ballet, with a personality of perhaps unique significance in the ballet world both now and in the whole second half of the past century. This inspired me to create this blog, about the dancer for whom the then director of the Royal Ballet had created this nickname which I've chosen as the title for this publication. Sylvie Guillem is only 59 today, and her career is far from ended. However, owing perhaps in part to the low-definition videos that were taken of her dancing, but in much larger part to her legendary career, she has always remained in my mind among the great legends of the past, alongside Nureyev, Fonteyn, and all the others who have traversed the 20th century like bright comets. That Guillem is a legend, makes not the shadow of a doubt; that there have been none like her before or after, remains a question of opinion, however many those who share it. There is not only her reputation to attest to this. I believe Sylvie Guillem is the only dancer I instantly recognize on a video without having to look at her face to identify her: her feet and arms, and even just her dancing, instantly give her away. First of all before anything else I want to explain what makes Sylvie Guillem special in the eyes of most fans of dance, ballet and the performing arts in general.
Sylvie Guillem combined throughout her career all the qualities essential to a dancer and an athlete: perfect proportions, stamina, flexibility, strength, stage presence.
A google search for the rankings of the various ballet companies worldwide sets the Paris Opera Ballet at the very top of the prestige list, before even the Bolshoi and the brilliantly reputed National Ballet of Cuba; now this is not necessarily a statement that it is the greatest in fact, since this would be a subjective view based on the preferences perhaps of the majority, but not representative of everyone's taste (many prefer the Vaganova style than that of the Paris School.) There is however an undisputable fact to consider when setting the French School against the Russian, beyond any consideration of quality, and that is, that ballet was born in France, the school founded by Louis XIV (Académie Royale de Danse et de Musique) was the first educational establishment in the History of ballet as an art form, and the whole syllabus of ballet is based on these laws as they were first instated. There is no denying that the French school is the direct heir of all these codes. The high standards of the Paris Opera Ballet School, which have ever been upheld with pride through the centuries, have always meant not only that the training has always been of the utmost quality and precision, but also, perhaps unfortunately for some, that the selection of dancers, effected even before the training starts, has remained extremely strict, to the point of eliminating candidates for entrance into the school based on their body proportions alone. This is perhaps a necessary evil for the school to retain its prestige and the aura of perfection it's always enjoyed worldwide. Paris Opera Ballet dancers are known for their flawless technique, the precision of every position, every transition, their perfect body proportions in accordance with the traditional standards; and they've been able to maintain this prestigious reputation through that very strict selection they make not only of their graduates, but also simply of their candidates. And as says Karl Paquette, former danseur étoile of the company, admittance into the company is never definitive: the rank achieved at each promotion is threatened by the annual competitive examinations (les concours internes de promotion) which guarantee that the competence of the dancer is regularly put to the test.
This short sum up of the standards of the Paris Opera Ballet will make it easier to understand the extent of Sylvie Guillem's exceptional place among her peers. Guillem started dancing at age 11; nine years later in 1984 after a performance in Rudolf Nureyev's Swan Lake she became the youngest ever étoile the company had produced. She was 19. Sylvie Guillem's case is almost unique in the history of ballet. Having been given that title, coveted by dancers worldwide, arguably the highest possible professional achievement for a dancer in terms of prestige, at the youngest possible age, she left the company four years later because it wouldn't let her perform elsewhere, and her freedom and independence have always been determining factors in her choices. This is perhaps what impresses most about Guillem as an artist: the combination of outstanding talent and desire for freedom and independence has prompted her throughout her career to look for new opportunities, to be able to impose, so to speak, her own standards to companies which before had always imposed their standards to their dancers.
Guillem with her longtime POB partner Laurent Hilaire, in a contemporary production (top) and in Romeo & Juliet (bottom.)
So what made Sylvie Guillem's talent so exceptional? I came across a comment on youtube under a video of her Cinderella, in Nureyev's production, which called Guillem "the one dancer no company could afford to lose, not even the Paris Opera Ballet." She was from the start a combination of qualities which it is very rare to find in a dancer at such high levels of perfection. First of all, she started out as a gymnast, which together with her natural physical advantages provided her with more than the required flexibility and strength to make it into the ruthless Paris Opera Ballet School. She was shy and uncommunicative as a student, who initially hated ballet and preferred gymnastics. She was born in a working class family in the suburbs of Paris, her mother being a gymnastics teacher - the reason for her starting so soon - her father a car mechanic. But when in 1981 at the age of 16 she joined the corps the ballet of the company, after training under Claude Bessy who had instantly seen her potential, a new life started for her, one that would propel her into stardom. She was in fact fascinated by the performance aspect of dance: understandably enough, since it was her stage presence which made her so exceptional. And it was because of these special talents that she was honoured with a distinction which any dancer in the world at that time would have envied: at barely twenty she became the youngest étoile the Paris Opera Ballet had ever produced - thus reaching the most prestigious position in the most prestigious company in the world before the age at which a dancer typically becomes a principal. This she obtained after a performance in Rudolf Nureyev's staging of Swan Lake. Nureyev during most of his career had always had a privileged relationship with the Paris Opera Ballet: being nominated étoile after a performance in one of his productions was significant for Guillem. One of her favourite partners during her time with the POB was Laurent Hilaire.
With Nureyev (top) who nominated her étoile after her performance in Swan Lake, and working on a piece with Béjart (bottom) with whom she closely collaborated, creating several productions with him.
It might be thought sad that this amazing dancer, a product after all of the Paris Opera Ballet school, had such a short-lived career with the company that was equally a product of the school. But as has been said Guillem is a very forceful nature, undoubtedly conscious of her own worth, and was fast to find the exclusivity of her home company restrictive and even oppressive. An excellent online documentary, Sylvie Guillem: Force of Nature, retraces the stages of her withdrawal from the POB, and even features a part of the tale in her own words in highlights of interviews with the dancer. It is clear that her withdrawal was in great part due to her independent spirit: it was this same independent spirit that made it unthinkable for her to perform exclusively for the POB during her whole career, and urged her to seek freedom and diversity of experience in partnerships with other companies around the world, the most famous of which is that which she fostered with the Royal Ballet, of which she became an appreciated and revered guest. It was there too that she earned her famous nickname, "Mademoiselle Non", given her by the then director of the Royal Ballet, Sir Anthony Dowell, because she would simply say no to something which she didn't want to do as a professional artist, even if it was a request of the company. It is this same Anthony Dowell who then spoke of his partnership with Guillem, at the public announcement of her retirement from the stage, in 2015, with an affection and reverence that plainly show the very close relationship which they shared and the invaluable asset the Royal Ballet director was conscious of having inherited, as it were, from the POB.
A dramatic take of Guillem in one of the contemporary poses for which she became well-known later in her career.
There were after that Royal Ballet chapter of her life, which was so important in her career, several other projects and world tours which she undertook, among which the direction of a controversial Nureyev tribute program, before she reached a turning point in 2006. In that year she made one of her most significant decisions, to move from ballet to contemporary dance: it was as a contemporary dancer that she joined London's Sadler's Wells Theatre, working also with Maurice Béjart and his unique form of modern ballets. Béjart has said that when he created a work with Guillem he was not the only creator, but she was an integrant part of the creative process, inspiring him with every single one of her movements. Contemporary allowed Guillem to manifest her special qualities with more freedom of expression, in stunning, occasionally violent choreography. Her unrivalled abilities are already visible in her interpretation of Cinderella in Rudolf Nureyev's production of the ballet, where Nureyev's choreography has to be handled by an expert to be pleasing visually, so challenging is it.
There must we end our exploration of Sylvie Guillem's life and character; and if we're far from having covered every interesting part of her very rich existence, including her efforts for environmental preservation and the respect of animals and nature in general, it's hardly necessary to delve deeper in writing in the many qualities which made her so special as an artist. Indeed the best way of realizing how exceptional she is as an artist is to see her dance: even in the usual low-quality footage available of her on youtube or other platforms it is clear that her technical excellence in the purely physical aspects of her performance, her strength, flexibility, her suavely arched feet, long limbs, and the energy of her movements, remained quite unparalleled, or rarely so, in the decades that have followed, producing quality artists all over the globe as we can see them live now on the stages of the world. And it is not only this, but the drama of her performance, the intensity of her stage presence and the magnetic energy which she distilled before audiences, which have made her one of the most celebrated stars of her generation, turning her into a world phenomenon. One might as a matter of fact almost say that watching Guillem one feels as if carried beyond the realm of any specific form of dance, into the realm of universally understood Movement, the perfection of her technique having freed her from obedience to any convention, just as she freed herself through her desire for freedom from the exclusivity of the Paris Opera Ballet which produced her. And just as the laws of ballet which had produced her were bent by her for greater expression, so the company which had produced her had to see her go also; her gift was too great to be reserved to a single company, and the emancipation which she obtained in her technical excellence was reciprocated, so it seems, in her professional career. Today we can only watch the precious footage of her, and wonder whether such other phenomenons will be granted us on the world's stages, as the phenomenon of Sylvie Guillem.
What did it take for "Mademoiselle Non" to become one of the most stunning phenomenons in the world of dance of the past generation, a legend in her own right? Perhaps, combined with her extraordinary abilities, the courage to say "no", as her nickname humorously suggest.
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