Report of an
interview of Vanessa Palmer by Joan Seaman
Swedenborg Hall, London
7 December 2005
click for a larger image
Vanessa Palmer comes from Shoeburyness,
near Southend-on-Sea in Essex. Her mother
met two women at her ante-natal classes
and kept in touch with them after the
birth of their daughters. One of the girls
had a godmother, who was a dance teacher.
All three girls went to dance classes
at the age of 3. The dance teacher knew
Patricia Prime, who is now Vice-Chairman
of the Imperial Society of Teachers of
Dancing (ISTD), and she sent Vanessa to
her ballet class. Vanessa didn’t
enjoy it and soon gave up, but she went
back at the age of 6. She always loved
music and dancing to music, although not
in class with a poor pianist. That is
difficult. Vanessa needs an atmosphere
in class.
Every year Vanessa was taken to the ballet
as a birthday treat and as a Christmas
treat. The first ballet she saw, aged
6, was Manon with Jennifer Penney. It
was magical. She liked everything about
it. She still feels a thrill dancing in
this ballet. You are there at the Opera
House all day and all night, but the magic
thrill keeps you going.
Vanessa’s mother was not an archetypal
ballet mother. She took Vanessa once a
week to class; soon the class were being
encouraged to try pointework. Her mother
only allowed her to do five minutes of
the half hour class and build up gradually
so her feet would gain strength and not
bleed like all the other girls. When Vanessa
was preparing for competition in festivals,
her mother rehearsed her in the bathroom,
for losing! Vanessa reflected that a dancer’s
career is full of disappointments. You
need to be “old school”. If
you want fairness, you cannot go into
show biz. You need to be told that you
are not that good. It’s a hard life.
Vanessa sat her 11-plus exams. If I fail,
she decided, I will audition for the Royal
Ballet School. She achieved a borderline
pass and she entered the grammar stream
at secondary school, not the comprehensive
stream. Finally she auditioned for the
Royal Ballet alongside Darcey Bussell.
She entered the second year and Darcey
was placed in the third year.
Amongst Vanessa’s companions at
the Royal Ballet School were Simone Clark,
now Principal Dancer of English National
Ballet, who was her best friend; Belinda
Hatley, who joined in the third year;
Gillian Revie; Luke Heydon; Conor O’Brien,
who went on to dance with London City
Ballet; Richard Whistler, formerly with
Scottish Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet;
and Zara Deakin, currently with the Peter
Schaufuss Ballet.
Vanessa Palmer took the assessment and
Cecchetti exams in her third year at the
Royal Ballet School. In her fourth year,
the School changed its curriculum to follow
the Vaganova system. When the teacher
Patricia Linton came back to the school
after the holidays, she almost cried.
They no longer took full plies at the
barre; everything was over-analysed. Everyone
suffered – they had to unlearn what
they had learnt. Now it has gone full
circle, back to the old system.
Vanessa joined the Upper School at the
age of 16. They had guest teachers, with
a new teacher every three weeks. Now the
Upper School has set teachers for each
year. After the first year, when you entered
the graduate class, you could drop all
school studies. That is not allowed now.
Vanessa was so grateful to get rid of
the schoolwork. She had to take all her
‘O’ levels at White Lodge.
She took ‘A’ levels in dance
and art.
In her second year at the Upper School,
Vanessa was the only dancer, who did not
get a job. After eight weeks on tour with
the Royal Ballet Touring Company (now
BRB), she went back to school for a third
year. It was horrendous at the time. She
had already worked hard on solo variations.
Now she was able to work with Monica Mason.
All the teachers at the school knew her
well and it was very good experience.
She stayed in Talgarth Road, very close
to the school, and then moved just across
the road. It is difficult on your own.
There were only nine girls left in her
class by the fifth year at White Lodge.
At the Upper School, they were joined
by lots more.
Vanessa had begun performing in the shows
at White Lodge. In the fourth year, she
danced the Other Girl in Songs and Stories
on pointe. Pauline Wadsworth was her teacher,
but it was Richard Glasstone who chose
her. She also danced the Lettuce in Pas
des Legumes, with Rachel Whitbread and
Dorcas Walters. In the fifth year, she
covered one of the roles in Ashton’s
Nursery Suite, the ballet about Princess
Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, when
they were children.
In the Upper School, she danced the Czardas
in Swan Lake, Winter in Kenneth MacMillan’s
The Four Seasons and the Gypsy Girl in
Ashton’s The Two Pigeons, with Adam
Cooper as the Boy. The Two Pigeons has
fantastic music. Vanessa learnt both the
Young Girl and the Gypsy Girl. At first
she wanted to dance the Young Girl, but
in rehearsal she enjoyed the flavour of
the Gypsy Girl. Julie Lincoln, ballet
mistress at the School, produced The Two
Pigeons. Just before the performance of
The Two Pigeons, Vanessa Palmer and Adam
Cooper were accepted into the company.
Shortly afterwards Gary Avis was accepted.
Vanessa was thrilled.
In the company, Vanessa cut her teeth
on Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet. She
danced full out in the studio, acting
right through the market scene, selling
her goods to the wall. Kenneth MacMillan
would sit through the rehearsals wearing
dark glasses, so you did not know if he
was watching you. You were told to act,
but not what to act. You fed off your
colleagues. Vanessa particularly remembers
Jacqui Tallis, Fiona Marshall, Christina
Parker and the three harlots were danced
by Genesia Rosato, Tracy Brown and Rosalyn
Whitten. Monica would give stories to
the dancers, “Not a good price for
your fish today!” If you act too
much, you are in danger of distracting
from the principals. The three harlots
need to balance with Romeo, Mercutio and
Benvolio, not overpower them.
In the last act of Manon, each harlot
is an individual, but Vanessa remembers
that Sarah Wildor stood out at once. All
of Kenneth MacMillan’s work is about
being real. When you are goading or flirting,
it is difficult to create a mood, if your
colleague has a blank expression. “I
remember being overawed by all the dancers
I’d watched as a little girl and
here I was dancing alongside them”.
Vanessa was so wrapped up in her character,
that she threw water over one of the actresses.
The actress got the Madame to come round
and have a word with her. Then she dropped
a fan during the harlots’ dance.
Irek Mukhamedov picked it up, brought
it over and stopped her in mid-dance.
Kenneth loved it!
When she is acting on stage, does she
talk out loud? Vanessa doesn’t,
but some dancers do. They have long conversations
whilst sitting at the tables in Act Two
of Manon. “The people in the middle
are not doing their job properly!”
They did not have acting lessons, but
Barbara Fewster taught mime. We all used
to get the giggles. Michael Somes taught
her “supported adage”, how
to promenade, how to walk, giving a hand
and taking a hand. Vanessa’s first
acting role was a solo called “Fairies
at the Bottom of my Garden”, which
she danced in a local festival. That was
her first taste of using the imagination
and making an audience believe her story.
When Vanessa took her teaching exams,
it took her back to her childhood. You
have to teach imagination, how to walk
as the Queen of the Wilis, how to walk
as a fairy, how to walk on for a classical
solo.
What of Ashton? Vanessa was lucky to have
met him and worked with him. He was special.
He wanted a woman to be a woman. He liked
pretty things. There are so many special
moments in his ballets. One of Vanessa’s
favourite Ashton moments is in the last
act of Cinderella, when the fairies bourree
down the stage. Her favourite Ashton ballets
for watching are Cinderella, The Dream,
Enigma Variations and A Month in the Country.
Balanchine is great, fabulous to watch.
His ballets really suit Darcey Bussell,
Marianela Nunez, Fiona Chadwick and Deborah
Bull, but they were not for Vanessa. She
likes Apollo and Agon, but dislikes Symphony
in C. Balanchine is a different style,
requiring great technicians with wonderful
feet. On stage a dancer is a professional,
whatever they are confronted with. However
Vanessa does not suit Balanchine. She
does not find it easy. She needs a story,
not just dancing. She likes to be someone.
Vanessa loves Swan Lake, because you can
be someone. She is always asking herself
how does a swan walk, how does the Queen
of the Wilis walk, how do you pick something
up from the stage. Lesley Collier in The
Dream took you into the story.
Vanessa never had any aspiration to dance
Juliet, because she knew she never would.
She has now danced all the roles she wanted:
Lescaut’s mistress in Manon, the
Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen
of the Wilis in Giselle and one of the
leading ladies in Ashton’s La Valse.
Vanessa’s career has been feast
and famine. She took over recently in
La Valse, when Gemma Sykes twisted her
foot.
Vanessa does not have time to go to the
theatre. As she appears in more and more
performances her life outside becomes
very precious. She tries to persuade her
partner (who is on the technical staff
of the Opera House) to go out on his night
off, but they seldom coincide. Currently
he was working on Sylvia, whereas Vanessa
was not appearing in it at all. On a free
night, she finds that the dust is that
thick! Vanessa reads crime novels –
the more bizarre the crime, the more enjoyable
the book.
Vanessa has recently been appointed as
Assistant Ballet Mistress. What is her
job? She has no job description; she makes
it up. Ursula Hageli, the new ballet mistress,
has been thrown in at the deep end. Vanessa
has been helping her rehearse the wilis
– 24 can do it backwards, but the
three new girls hardly know a single step.
She demonstrates, as Ursula explains what
she wants. She instructs the pianist.
She provides general advice on things
that might go wrong. Every week something
is new for Ursula. The girls in the corps
de ballet come to her with their blisters,
their needs for massage and physiotherapy.
She is enjoying the new experiences. She
is lucky to have seen the ballerinas of
the previous generation, Jennifer Penney,
Bryony Brind and Lesley Collier. She has
worked with Sir Fred and with Kenneth
MacMillan. When she says something to
the corps, they know that what she says
is right. She does not work on new ballets;
she works mainly on the big corps numbers.
Vanessa seems to be on stage all the time
at the moment. She is dancing more than
she has ever done. Monica wants to keep
her on stage. She has been appearing as
the mother in La Sylphide and as the nurse
in Onegin. She never wanted to be a character
principal, but she does not find these
roles hard. Hopefully, her role as Assistant
Ballet Mistress will take her in another
direction. When the pointe shoes go, Vanessa
will still be in the studio. The music
starts and she wants to get up and dance.
Vanessa is totally Royal Ballet. She loves
Ashton, MacMillan and Christopher Wheeldon.
She found Alastair Marriott’s recent
ballet, Tanglewood, very lovely.
She recalls a joint gala on tour in Moscow
with the Bolshoi Ballet. The wings were
crowded with ladies in white overalls,
who chatted through the Royal Ballet numbers,
but were silent for the Bolshoi performances.
Vanessa thought that the Black Swan pas
de deux was taking the micky, but the
ballerina was for real!
Vanessa is currently preparing the Queen
of the Wilis for the forthcoming revival
of Giselle. Monica Mason has been coaching
her for about a month. The role is a killer.
You cannot dance it more than twice in
one week. Vanessa keeps a diary and writes
down her thoughts. She has seen so many
people dance this role. Is Myrthe evil,
or just hurt and bitter? In the woods
on her own, in her private time, she lets
herself show her vulnerability a bit,
before summoning the rest of the wilis.
Her last entrance demonstrates so much
power. Monica Mason advises her to regard
the audience as trees. As Vanessa walks
home, she thinks how she looks at trees.
She rehearses in her head, a method of
psychotherapy, like runners recalling
a race in their heads.
Vanessa’s most embarrassing moment?
She made her debut as one of the four
Big Swans in Swan Lake with Gillian Revie,
who had danced it before. After joining
the corps de ballet, they both forgot
their next entrance and only 2 of the
4 swans came on. Rosealind Eyre went mad
and said they would never dance it again.
At a performance of Giselle Act Two, they
changed the timing when the Queen of the
Wilis dismisses the line of the wilis.
Vanessa went early and the whole line
of wilis stayed on the stage.
© The Ballet Association 2006
Kenneth Leadbeater
Report checked and corrected by Vanessa
Palmer and Joan Seaman
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