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Leanne Benjamin
Principal Dancer, The Royal Ballet
interviewed by David Bain
Swedenborg Hall, London
17 July 2006.
DAVID BAIN OPENED THE interview by reminding
the audience that Leanne had attended
a meeting of the Association some six
years ago but since meetings were not
recorded in those days he felt that it
was necessary to go over some of the ground
covered in that earlier interview.
He asked Leanne about her early ballet
experiences and, in particular, to explain
a little about how she came to England
from Australia in order to join the Royal
Ballet School. Leanne explained that she
was kept very busy as a child in Rockhampton
and carried out many activities both in
and out of school. Her ballet lessons
were generally very early in the morning
or after school. She had no early pre-conception
of what a ballerina should be like and
didn’t see ballet as her big ideal
at this time. She had the experience of
seeing Margot Fonteyn dance in her later
career, when visiting Australia, and Leanne
performed as a Sylphide at Queensland
Ballet as a young child. It was her sister,
Madonna, who led the way, entering the
Royal Ballet School two years before Leanne.
Leanne knew that she was “capable
of doing what was thrown at me and realised
that I must be OK”, so she decided
to follow her sister to London. At the
time, she recalled that people thought
she was so small that she might be anorexic,
a concept that greatly amused her mother
who said that “never had a child
eaten so much”!
Her father brought her to the UK a year
before she joined the RBS “to try
to turn her off London” but the
visit wasn’t a deterrent and in
1980 she remembered leaving the glorious
sunshine of Australia for gloomy London.
When Leanne joined the Royal Ballet School,
she came into a year of great talent with
Maria Almeida, Jonathan Cope and Christopher
Saunders as contemporaries. Her early
teachers included Nancy Kilgore, from
whom she gained a lot of excitement and
enthusiasm for dance, and Julia Farron,
who helped her to understand many aspects
of performance.
As a student, Leanne relished every opportunity
to dance on the Covent Garden stage: she
won the Adeline Genée Gold Medal
followed by the Prix de Lausanne, which
she entered with Elizabeth Tulloch and
Maria Almeida. On graduation from the
Upper School, both Ninette de Valois and
Peter Wright wanted her to join their
companies: Leanne felt that she would
have more opportunity to dance solo roles
at Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet,
which encouraged her to accept the offer
from Peter. Her intuition proved right
and she won many leading roles very quickly,
including Aurora, Lise in La Fille
mal gardée, Odette/Odile
and Giselle. She was also chosen to create
a role in David Bintley’s Metamorphosis.
Understandably, her elevation to significant
roles created some rivalry with other,
more established, dancers and she recalled
a feeling that she had “ruffled
some feathers” but she also remembered
the time of the performances in the Big
Top with fondness: “there was a
lot of laughter and it made me want to
stay.”
She had a meteoric rise through the ranks
at Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet:
joining in 1983; promoted to soloist in
1985; and appointed a Principal dancer
in 1987. At that time, she received a
phone call from Peter Schaufuss
(then Artistic Director at London Festival
Ballet) who offered her the opportunity
to dance the opening night of Ashton’s Romeo & Juliet but –
at that time – Leanne had not considered
leaving SWRB and, although she started
to work with Ashton on Juliet at night
in the London Festival Ballet studios,
it didn’t feel right to leave and
so she declined.
Throughout her career Leanne has never
seen herself as a “workhorse”
and she has needed the right environment
in which to flourish. In these early years
at SWRB the circumstances were not right
for her: she felt that there were too
many shows and not enough opportunity
to focus on individual performances, which
she felt tended to make her “a bit
sloppy.” Leanne didn’t want
to become “a big fish in a small
pond” and needed to be challenged.
To achieve this, she realised that the
best course of action would be for her
to move on and so she joined the London
Festival Ballet, which became English
National Ballet.
At the time that Leanne joined the company,
it had a strong range of stars and there
was a very strong emphasis on technique
(whereas the emphasis at SWRB was more
on performance) which she found to be
especially stimulating.
Whilst at the ENB, Leanne was able to
develop her technical skills through ballets,
such as Harold Lander’s Etudes and
Glen Tetley’s Sphinx. She also got
to star in the reconstructed Ashton Romeo
& Juliet. The end of her time
at ENB was disturbing: she felt that Peter
Schaufuss was a great director who really
cared for the company and the manner of
his departure was very upsetting for her
as a dancer. So, when Peter was appointed
as Director of the Deutsche Opera Ballet
in Berlin, she readily followed him to
Germany. Many other dancers left ENB at
that time.
Unfortunately, Leanne didn’t enjoy
her brief period in Berlin and it was
generally not a good time to be there.
She found it difficult to integrate into
the lifestyle and culture and did not
have many performance opportunities, although
she got to do MacMillan’s Different
Drummer – which had been
created for Alexandra Ferri – and
she played Brunhilda in Béjart’s Ring um den Ring –
a five hour ballet. There were many difficulties
and peculiarities about mounting it in
Berlin. She remembered that, as this was
a joint production, Béjart had
really wanted members of his own company
to dance the leading roles, rather than
those from Deutsche Oper.
Kenneth MacMillan liked her work and asked
her to come back to SWRB. Earlier in her
career, Leanne hadn’t wanted to
go to the Royal Ballet: she thought of
it as “stifling” and not the
kind of institution that she wanted to
be a part of. However, by this point in
her career things had changed and it was
less hierarchical: it was essential that
this change started from the top and that
younger dancers were made to feel more
integrated into the company. So Leanne
told MacMillan that she would come back
to Britain but only to join the Royal
and this was arranged.
This decision immediately paid dividends
through some fantastic early roles, such
as Mary Vetsera in Mayerling,
which was a role she had been yearning
for since it had been created. The
Judas Tree was another example
of a fantastic role for Leanne on her
return to London. As she dances on the
film of this ballet, people think it was
choreographed on her, rather than Viviana
Durante. She actually didn’t get
to work with MacMillan on the ballet and
he died before she did her first night
of Mayerling.
Asked about how she interprets such dramatic
roles, Leanne said that they are “just
inside, I feel it” and that much
of her interpretation follows naturally
from “how others react to her in
their roles.” There were other “gutsy”
roles in this early period at Covent Garden
which were “so far removed from
real life” and gave Leanne many
opportunities to “do something that
I would never experience elsewhere, at
that time.”
Leanne was promoted to Principal after
a performance of Swan Lake.
She has always enjoyed the classic roles
and feels that she has managed to develop
and extend her interpretation of the major
roles over her career. At the time of
her interview, Leanne had just returned
from playing Juliet in Madrid and “really
enjoys the part now.” However, it
is the one-act repertoire – particularly
MacMillan’s Requiem, Judas Tree and Gloria all of which are driven by the music –
and the opportunity to create new parts
in modern choreography that motivates
her now. As an example of the latter,
she had found Wheeldon’s Polyphonia and more recently Alastair Marriott’s Tanglewood to be especially
interesting. At this stage of her career,
Leanne saw no appeal in trying to do “fouettés
better than anyone else” but would
“rather get into new work.”
She spoke a little about her imminent
performances in Austria, working with
Kim Brandstrup on his House of
Usher, with Stephen McRae, Johannes
Stepanek and Gary Avis, as part of an
evening inspired by Debussy. She described
the work as “dark and compelling”
and was enjoying the “very inventive
and collaborative” experience of
working on a big production with Brandstrup.
She also spoke of the experience of working
with Wayne McGregor on Qualia,
which she had been asked to do when pregnant.
At the time, there was not much new work
being developed for the main stage and
she had been unsure whether she would
be able to do it. However, her pas de
deux with Ed Watson was one of the highlights
of her recent career. She has also enjoyed
working with Alastair Marriott and Liam
Scarlett – in another duet with
Ed: this work had been developed in the
summer, right at the end of the season
and it would have been easy for her to
turn it down but she was keen to work
with a bright, young choreographer and
finds these to be challenging opportunities.
Asked about coming back after the birth
of her son, Leanne paid tribute to her
mother-in-law, Georgina Parkinson, who
had helped not only with good advice but
also in the more practical aspects of
babysitting! One of her early roles after
returning to the stage was as the hostess
in Les Biches, a very difficult
role – “way ahead of its time”
– that she had to prepare with only five
rehearsals. The entrance is particularly
challenging – “the light hits
you and although temporarily blinded,
you have to keep to these perfect parallel
lines of bourrées.”
Leanne described motherhood as “the
most challenging time in my life”
and felt that the break had been good
for her. “I had been doing a lot
of the same repertoire and dancers sometimes
retire because they are bored.”
It had been relatively easy to come back
to the stage: partly because her son is
“so easy on every level, and always
so happy.” She considers herself
“very lucky to have him and to still
have my career” and she feels that
she still has “so much more to give.”
Motherhood has helped to enhance many
aspects of her performance and she identified
her solo in Requiem as an
example. Looking at her son playing had
“made me realise what I needed to
feel to make it better.” However,
she “doesn’t know how long
she will carry on” since she is
“too much of a perfectionist”
to accept not being able to perform at
her very best.
Asked what next, Leanne said that there
are a lot of potential opportunities for
next season, including a part in the new
Wheeldon ballet scheduled for the autumn.
She also expected to be dancing again
in Mayerling and would be
doing Rhapsody again with
Carlos, as well as Song of the
Earth. She was looking forward
to the new season because it promised
to be a good mix of new work and old favourites.
Asked if there were any roles that she
felt had passed her by, Leanne immediately
said that she would have liked to dance
Tatiana in Onegin. It was
difficult to regret this as a “missed
opportunity” since she had been
occupied with Manon, Juliet, Song of the Earth and Requiem all of which had been fantastic roles.
She also expressed regret that John Neumeier
was not represented in the Company’s
repertoire although acknowledging that
no artist’s career could encompass
all the great contemporary choreographers.
She was pleased that “the politics
are different now” and great modern
choreographers, such as Ek and Kylián,
are now represented in the Royal Ballet’s
repertoire. Her own philosophy now was
“to look for personal challenges
in her work” and she could “never
be bitter about not getting cast because
she has had so many other great opportunities”
When the session was opened up to the
audience, Leanne was asked what she would
do after she stopped dancing at the Royal
Ballet: did she see her future here in
the UK or back in Australia? Leanne said
that she now very much saw herself as
an Australian permanently based in London.
She felt that her future life and opportunities
were all here in the UK. Her son is already
scheduled to go to a great school here.
“If we went anywhere else, it would
be in the States.” Her husband –
who had until recently managed the Donmar
Warehouse – had recently set up
his own business and there were big changes
to manage: “ours is quite a household
– there is so much going on at home
that I go to work as a rest!”
Asked about what she considered to be
her greatest roles, Leanne spoke of the
Firebird which was very challenging. It
had been five years since she had last
performed it and it is the most physically
demanding role, “using every muscle
– you exit completely exhausted.”
She also spoke about her first creation, Metamorphosis, which had
shocked a lot of people because of its
dark content. Despite being very bizarre,
she was “never fazed by it.”
She didn’t particularly see her
future in terms of coaching especially
in a structured or conventional sense
but she would always help if anyone asks
and had enjoyed the opportunity to help
brilliant young dancers, such as Ed Watson
and – more recently – Stephen McRae.
She felt that it is a shame not to pass
on experience to others and “would
think about it, but where and for whom
is important.” Leanne was concerned
to avoid “getting boxed in, but
if the phone rings and it’s
something interesting, I might do it –
it is neo-classical work, more than anything
else, that interests me.” She also
said that she has no intention to choreograph
work. Asked about future projects, Leanne
said that there is talk of bringing the
current Brandstrup work (House
of Usher) to the UK.
David Bain asked about her sister, Madonna,
who didn’t carry on with ballet.
Leanne said that they were very different.
To some extent, Leanne felt that ballet
company life was difficult for Madonna
and that she is “very bright and
good at so many things – a student
of everything – and sometimes it’s
detrimental to be good at lots of things.”
She has now made a great career as a television
director, having first gone to Oxford
University, and has a lovely family. Leanne
considered herself “lucky to have
family here” and also that she had
not suffered the same pressures as her
sister – “decisions have been
much easier for me – I only wanted
to dance.”
Asked about her funniest or most embarrassing
moment on stage, Leanne preferred instead
to speak about the “chaos of my
household” and the various problems
she has had in holding on to good au pairs
and nannies: so far she has had home help
from Texas, France, Germany and Latvia
– “you’ve got to keep
au pairs happy!” is her current
mantra. The final question was whether
she saw her son following in her career:
Leanne replied that “his legs are
very good” but she preferred the
idea of him becoming a “footballer
or tennis player”!
Report by Graham Watts, checked and corrected by Leanne
Benjamin and David Bain ©The Ballet Association 2007.