Grace Jones: Ballet Dancer

[Interview by Hannah Kirby - First published in ForgePress 21 November]

"Dance feeds a part of your brain that nothing else does. Sport just doesn’t have the artistry, and arts won’t push you physically: dance is a harmony of exercise between body and mind. It processes emotion and thought patterns without speech. You have to use your own initiative, and answer with your body. Communicating through dance isn’t quite mysterious, but it’s subtle and ambiguous; it keeps people guessing. It’s the poetry of the stage.

"I started ballet late, by most standards, when I was eight. At first I just went along because my friend was interested; I was never one of those little girls coveting pretty pink tutus. Then, it was my family and friends’ appreciation of my dancing that I followed, rather than any burning desire of my own. But dancing, I felt – and feel – so confident. It sounds like a cliché, but it just feels natural.

"I got into the Royal Ballet School when I was eleven, almost by accident. I went along to an ‘outreach’ audition in Birmingham just as experience but, astonishingly, I got in. Saying you went to Royal opens you up to some embarrassing stereotyping: it’s an awful lot to live up to-. The School was really strict, but I did like having set parameters by which to live. That echoes the way I feel about the discipline of ballet itself: I love the fact that there’s an etiquette; there are standards, and you always know where you are. I suppose it’s really that sense of tradition that makes ballet so exceptional. It’s not necessarily snobbish, but it’s very English, very historical.

"At Royal, though, the dancers are taught to aspire to be perfect in every way. We were expected to improve ourselves not only in ballet, but also in beauty and intelligence. I do remain very loyal to the way Royal teaches, but there’s no denying that it could be a little undermining. I was quite a perfectionist before I went anyway, and it just got worse. I chose to leave when I was 14, because I wanted to continue loving and believing in ballet. Although it was due to my own reasons, not theirs, I couldn’t have done that at Royal.

"These photographs were taken for a magazine feature that was done just before then, backstage at our annual performance at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. It was my last with Royal.

"I moved to the Birmingham Royal Ballet at the age of 16, but had to leave only the next year, because I didn’t heal properly after an operation on an elongated talus [an ankle bone]. It meant I could never dance professionally.

"When I moved to Sheffield for my degree, again it was my family and friends who encouraged me – this time to start teaching. I thought I’d give it a try before I wrote it off. It was nerve-wracking, but I was curious. I’m so glad I did; I now teach advanced classes for the Union, and we’re performing in the University’s Society Showcase at the end of this month.

"We’ve also held workshops with the professional Hofesh Shechter Company, which was bizarre. Of course it was a huge insight for me to work with dancers who weren’t connected with classical ballet, but their style is so contemporary. Ballet’s changed a lot in the last fifty years; it’s much more dynamic, and it’s connected to modern dance in that it’s a technical foundation. Expressive, jazz and tap artists are all made to take ballet classes. But to me, much contemporary dance feels random: there’s not always an obvious sense of flow, or form. It can be very clever, but almost anything goes. Classical ballet uses codes to express itself, and it has its own language. Where contemporary dance is abstract, ballet is figurative, and lyrical.

"Most importantly, though, ballet is beautiful. It’s a testament to the aesthetic: with or without its message or story, it’s beautiful. That, more than tradition or snobbery, is what maintains its popularity."