Name: Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera In Conversation by The Royal Ballet and Opera in English
Duration: 14 min 7 s
Description: Join two of the best loved dancers of the Royal Ballet, Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera as they talk about their careers and unique partnership. Interviewed by David Pickering.

English

Join two of the best loved dancers of the Royal Ballet, Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera as they talk about their careers and unique partnership. Interviewed by David Pickering.

Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera In Conversation

Guillaume Tell - 'Sois Immobile'

Russian dancer Vadim Muntagirov joined The Royal Ballet as a Principal in 2014, having danced with English National Ballet as a principal after training at The Royal Ballet School. At this ROH Insight, he talks about his career in ballet so far.

Aged seven, Muntagirov began dancing in his home city of Chelyabinsk before moving to Perm State Choreographic College two years later, an overnight train journey away. It was tough living far from home, he recalls, but like many children in Russia, ‘we didn’t really have a choice because [ballet] was such a typical Russian discipline. Crazy, angry teachers were smacking you and you had to work 200%’.

Moving to London to study at The Royal Ballet School was a big change. ‘It was completely different compared to Russia,’ he says, ‘because in Russia we would have bigger jumps and concentrated on turning, but in England it’s more about the small technique’. The English tradition, built on the rich heritage of Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan, is known for its sharp and intricate footwork. ‘Russia is very famous for classical ballets, when you do pirouettes and jumps. But I think for every Russian dancer it’s a dream to dance MacMillan and Ashton ballets.’

Royal Ballet Principal Vadim Muntagirov: 'It's a dream to dance MacMillan and Ashton ballets'

The Royal Opera House has been offering paid apprenticeships in backstage production and technical departments since 2007, providing high-quality vocational training by learning on the job from some of the best skilled in the industry.

Apprenticeships last two or three years and are offered in a wide range of departments, reflecting the huge set of skills needed to bring opera and ballet to the stage.

In celebration of National Apprenticeship Week we speak to some of the current apprentices at the Royal Opera House about their experiences of working in a busy theatre.

ROH Apprentices on how in-work training can help you get into industry

The Royal Ballet’s Resident Choreographer talks about the modern dancer and confounding expectations.

‘What’s amazing about ballet and the language of ballet is that it’s in constant change’, he says. ‘There’s a sense in which these bodies today are different from the bodies 50 years ago. They’re eating better, they have a better understanding of the biomechanics of the body, they’re faster, they can turn more, they can jump higher. That’s what excites me about working with a ballet company – it’s the potential to work with a lexicon that is known and pushing that to make an alphabet that is unknown, and those two working together and hopefully inspiring an audience.’

McGregor celebrates ten years as Resident Choreographer in autumn 2016, and that long relationship with the dancers is a crucial element in his works for the Company. ‘We’re very lucky here at The Royal Ballet in that all of the dancers are incredible. They have to have incredible technique, an amazing kind of emotional capacity – they have to be able to really invest in the material. These works that we are making are about those dancers and what their facility and ability is, and us finding a marriage to be able to extend classical ballet. Ballet is not a fixed form – ballet is a form which is always looking for new horizons and new adventures.’

When creating a work McGregor enjoys mixing together dancers he has worked with many times and dancers he is new to. ‘We have over a hundred dancers here who each have an incredible individuality. When I’m thinking about casting a piece I’m always thinking about what is special about that dancer and how that might work with another dancer, and what’s going to give me something really interesting – either a tension between them or a sympathy between them that’s going to create some real magic, this alchemy.’

‘I think part of my job as Resident Choreographer here at The Royal Ballet is to shake things up a little bit’, McGregor explains. ‘I try to find collaborations or ideas or work that in some way is unexpected and hopefully refreshing to the audience. You want the work to touch people in some kind of way, and it might be emotionally, but it also might be in a way that is quite confrontational.’

For McGregor, ‘The purpose of art is to provoke debate, it’s to stimulate imagination, it’s to promote thinking. It’s not about just coming and having a nice evening and enjoying something. Enjoyment might be a part of it but it’s not the only part of it. Ultimately you want the audience to leave the auditorium with images in their head and a sense of moving in their bodies that carries them through life. And that’s a really wonderful gift if you can share that with an audience.’

This interview features music from the symphonic poem Nyx by Esa-Pekka Salonen, used by McGregor in his ballet Obsidian Tear.
http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/gb/cat/4790628

‘Ballet is always looking for new adventures’ – Wayne McGregor on working with The Royal Ballet

In an interview with Sarah Crompton, choreographer Crystal Pite discusses the rigour and recklessness in her work, her early career with William Forsythe and how she uses dance as a means to communicate.

This interview was recorded live at an event as part of the Fonteyn Circle, The Royal Ballet, in March 2017, just before the premiere of Pite's Royal Ballet debut, Flight Pattern.

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/crystal-pite-on-rigour-recklessness-and-making-dance-speak

Crystal Pite on rigour, recklessness and making dance speak

Coppelia 2019-20 Audio Intro - Part 1

The Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden is home to The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet.

Laura Morera and Ricardo Cervera In Conversation

The Royal Ballet and Opera

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