Take a behind-the-scenes look at how ballet pioneer Li Cunxin and the widow of one of Britain's most controversial choreographers united in an audacious attempt to cement Brisbane's place on the world's arts map.
When Australian Story looked at revisiting a story on the Queensland Ballet to see how their new artistic director Li Cunxin had settled into his role, the question was: "What's new?"
As interesting as I found the rise of the man known as 'Mao's Last Dancer', there was definitely a sense that he had been well-exposed to media outlets throughout much of his recent tenure.
Despite the exposure, I still felt there must be some measure by which to judge how much he has changed this small ballet company, which had just 27 dancers when he took over.
Then Queensland Ballet announced its intention to stage Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet and I knew the moment of truth had arrived.
This ballet has been one of Sir Kenneth's most-loved hits since it debuted in 1965, when Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev received more than 40 curtain calls.
Queensland Ballet chief executive Anna Marsden says it is also a very challenging ballet to stage.
"Staging Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet is a big production for the big players of the ballet world - something that a state-based company would never [do]," she said.
"It would be rude, almost, to even ask."
Sir Kenneth was not only the Royal Ballet's principal choreographer, he was also considered the ballet establishment's "enfant terrible", even into his later years.
He brought a new emphasis to ballet - acting - empowering creative interpretation by the dancers themselves.
Sir Kenneth's huge international success was accompanied by endless attacks from the critics that took their toll on his health, according to his widow, Australian-born Lady Deborah MacMillan.
"They thought that Kenneth was destroying something," Lady MacMillan said.
"Now of course he's dead and gone they call him a genius, which sticks in my craw a little bit.
"There was a sort of cabal amongst the critics - it didn't matter what he did, they just threw ordure at him. And I used to get angry because the stress levels, you know, it affected his health.
"I really do - I blame them for it. And I'm a common Australian, so I don't shut up about it.
"So, I did sometimes steam in and get quite cross because I just thought 'you've got this talent here so why are you trying to cut him off at the knees?'."
Queensland's own gatekeeper to the world's most-loved balletsLady MacMillan found herself taking on the British establishment in defence of her husband - not bad for a girl from the small town of Boonah, just outside Brisbane.
A war baby, her father was a doctor in New Guinea at the end of the war, and on his return the family moved to Sydney.
She says this was a huge cultural change.
"I was very little. It was the first time I'd seen a flushing lavatory and apparently I flushed quite a few valuable things away, so I'm told," she said.
She studied art, dabbled in theatre and even ran away with an impresario who staged a fringe production of The Sound of Mucus in which she played a Nazi and a nurse. She also appeared in a drag show.
After moving to London she met Sir Kenneth on a blind date and entered into the world that has dominated her life since.
The pair became a dynamic power couple and Lady MacMillan became more and more involved in her partner's work.
It was a very close relationship and Sir Kenneth, despite a large disparity in age, found Lady MacMillan to be his saviour.
In the 1991 BBC documentary Out of Line, Sir Kenneth talked about his passions.
"The first time I felt I'd found part of my identity was when I very first [found] ballet," he said.
"The second part of my identity happened when I met Deborah and had Charlotte. So, that made me complete, really."
Sir Kenneth was plagued by poor health and was hospitalised in Brisbane after a massive heart attack.
Lady MacMillan and Sir Kenneth knew the writing was on the wall and began succession planning.
"We both knew that time was running out and I used to ask him questions because I knew I was going to be in charge - he made that quite clear," Lady MacMillan said.
"He said 'look I won't be around and you're going to have to make decisions and some of them are going to be right, some of them are going to be horribly wrong and you're just going to have to wear it and suck it up, you know, cope with it'."
So when Sir Kenneth died in 1992 Lady MacMillan became the gatekeeper - the keeper of the flame. And she protects the integrity of her late husband's work fiercely.
Sir Kenneth admired Li's 'brilliance' as a dancerIt was Lady MacMillan who Li approached to ask if he could stage Romeo and Juliet.
Li had danced Sir Kenneth's ballets and Sir Kenneth is remembered as admiring Li's "brilliance" as a dancer.
He, along with everyone else, knew Li's remarkable story.
Li grew up in rural China in a family that was large and poor. His big break came when he was chosen to study at Madam Mao's dance academy in Beijing - he had never even heard of ballet at the time.
"I hated ballet with passion [during] the first few years, absolutely hated it," he said.
"The training regime we were put through was absolutely brutal."
His wife Mary McKendry says he was not happy.
"Even as a youngster - at age 11 he went there - he was so dreadfully homesick," she said.
"He's got a very wonderful mother and father who are so loving. But he knew, he just knew it was the opportunity."
After years of training he became their leading dancer and at age 18 was offered a scholarship to dance in the US.
It was most unusual for the Chinese government to agree for someone to go abroad to study, but they did and he ended up in Houston, Texas.
And that was when his story came to international attention.
He fell in love with a local girl and refused to return China. Chinese agents tried to kidnap him, and vice president George Bush intervened. The Chinese backed down and Cunxin stayed in the US.
Mao's Last Dancer's take on MacMillan's classic Romeo and JulietLi's one regret, after a career as the world's most famous dancer, was that he never got the chance to dance Romeo in Sir Kenneth's production.
"I arrived in America at age 18, soon after that I watched Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet," he said.
"Ever since then, I fell in love with this production but unfortunately I never had a chance.
"It's truly one of these magical, iconic productions ... one of these ballets [and] I thought well if I did not have a chance to dance it, I would like to give my dancers that privilege."
When Li took up his position with Queensland Ballet, chief executive Ms Marsden told him to "dream big".
And when she asked him what work he would most like take on, he was quite sure.
"Li approached me two years ago and said, how would I feel about Romeo?" Lady MacMillan said.
She says initially she told Li it would not be possible with a company of only 34 dancers. Li was not deterred.
"We have eight wonderful young artists, we have 20-plus pre-professional students from different ballet schools around the world, and then I know there are a lot of extras I can get from drama schools," he said.
"If there's a will I will find a way to get there."
Lady MacMillan finally agreed and so this treasure made its way to Queensland - but only under the most intense scrutiny from the MacMillan Trust.
These guardians travel the world supervising the attempts of ballet companies to stage Sir Kenneth's ballets and Lady MacMillan has the last word.
"I expect the work to be respected, and mostly people do," she said.
"I don't often have to go steaming in and have the brawl. Occasionally I do, and I quite like it - sometimes I have had to say 'if this goes on I'm going to have to pull it'."
What won the day for Queensland Ballet was the State Government's so-called Super Star Fund.
This initiative is aimed at fostering local skills development by exposing Queensland trainees to international-standard artists.
Queensland Ballet was the first recipient and it allowed them to make up the shortfall in Li's company by bringing in three huge stars of the ballet world: Tamara Rojo, Carlos a Costa and Australian-born Royal Ballet dancer Steven McCrae.
Li combined these talents with his own company – mixing and matching.
As ballet critic Deborah Jones commented: "It was very clever of Li to pair his international guests with his own principal artists. If he had not done that, the accusation that he'd just thrown the cream of the crop in on opening night and then the rest of the company can just go and [fend] for itself, would be very high."
Performance 'startlingly good': Lady MacMillanOn June 27 Romeo and Juliet opened in Brisbane to much media fanfare.
Li knows he needs to charm the media to continue to enjoy their support.
His skills in finance, gained through recent years of stockbroking, have made him a valuable commodity for Queensland Ballet.
But as critic Ms Jones points out, the benefits are mutual.
"Li and Queensland Ballet have found themselves together at a good time for both," Ms Jones said.
"This is Li's first artistic directorship and he's come into a company that wanted change.
"That means that he's got an ability to show what he can do."
Li and Queensland Ballet seem to have pulled off a coup and Lady MacMillan did not have to step in and pull the plug.
"I just thought the performance was stunning," she said.
"I thought the entire company was in character, every single member was in character from start to finish - it was startlingly good, really was."
As for the future, Ms Jones does not think this is the end of the Li Cunxin story.
"It's impossible to say how long Li might wish to stay with Queensland Ballet," she said.
"I suspect he would like to see the company enlarged to quite a great degree and I think he would see himself as a great success if he could do that. I would expect, however, that Brisbane would not be the pinnacle of Li's ambition in ballet."
Watch Leaps and Bounds on Australian Story at 8:00pm on ABC.*http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/24507611/li-cunxin-how-maos-last-dancer-brought-sir-kenneth-macmillans-romeo-and-juliet-to-brisbane/
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