Dance the Atlantic

IT ISN’T LONG after we struggle upright and walk on shaky legs that we wish we could fly. We see birds in flight; we’ve yet to believe in gravity. Soon enough we learn our earthbound limits and do our flying in dreams.

The dancers on board: Daniel McCormick,
Francesca Velicu, Ivana Bueno, Eric Snyder,
Julia Conway, Miguel Angel Maidana

But there is one special type of person who can fly. You see it on stage in “Swan Lake,” in “Le Corsaire,” in “Sleeping Beauty” as the principal dancers lift off, soaring into the space humans aren’t supposed to occupy. But they’re up there, for dazzlingly long periods of time, their bodies portraits of a grace that hides the incredible athleticism of their art.

“I grew up in Bucarest,” says Francesca Velicu, Junior Soloist with the English National Ballet. “I started dancing when I was four. Eventually I danced with the Bolshoi before moving to the English National Ballet.” She’s speaking on Tuesday morning from the stage of the Royal Court Theatre, an entertainment venue on board the Queen Mary 2, and she’s part of the “Dance the Atlantic” theme of this particular voyage. Entertainment director Amanda Reid has gathered four dancers and Ballet Master Antonio Castilla to describe the dancer’s life. Velicu may be the one who summed it up best: “Ballet is not meant for the human body.”

But this is the same woman who hung in midair while performing a grand jeté, her body both in motion and defiantly suspended. With her partner, Daniel McCormick, she performed the pas de deux from the ballet “Le Corsaire,” recreating the famous choreography revived by Konstantin Sergeyev after an earlier revival by Marius Petipa, to music by Adolph Adam, although it seems that Riccardo Drigo cooked up the tune for this particular sequence. But this is just research-happy me getting sidetracked.

Velicu was re-partnered with McCormick in the grand pas de deux from the third act of “Don Quixote,” wherein he lifted her so effortlessly that she seemed to float, both of them in Spanish-themed costumes, celebrating a wedding in a way that makes any walk we’ve ever made down the aisle seem like a trudge.

There’s a classic architecture to a grand pas de deux. It’s usually in five parts: introduction, adagio, a variation for each of the dancers, and a coda. Beyond that, it’s usually a moment to allow the characters to express their passionate feelings for one another. And it’s about as virtuosic as ballet gets. Just to name one instance, this pas de deux is famous for the 32 fouettés the ballerina is asked to perform. That’s a turn performed en pointe, on one foot, as the other is whipped (that’s how fouetté translates) into a retiré (bend), giving momentum as the dancer turns. Velicu offered at least 32 fouettés when the moment arrived; there may have been more. I lost count in the high twenties.

Francesca Velicu

Six ENB soloists joined this trans-Atlantic journey, along with Castilla and a number of necessary others. A performance of a half-dozen excerpts was the centerpiece, presented three times throughout the week, but there also were five classes offered, not including two ballet technique workshops, two “Swan Lake” workshops and even a workshop for “Le Corsaire.” Three different rehearsals also were open to passengers.

And there was not only an impressive number of bunheads among those passengers but also dancer wanna-bes and even a former NYC Ballet dancer, long retired, here to enjoy the nostalgia of it all. (And I do get to use the term “bunhead,” as I shared a college-freshman tap class with a number of them and was thereby welcomed into the argot sorority. I’m serious.)

Tessa Kipping, the ENB’s senior corporate partnerships manager, served as company manager on this voyage. “Cunard likes to program ‘event voyages,’” she told me. “They approached us, and we love a challenge, so we looked at the spaces where we’d be performing and rehearsing and set some parameters to make it work. Our mission is to bring ballet to the widest possible audience.”

It’s a mission echoed by Castilla during the Tuesday interview. “Bringing the company aboard ship attracts balletomanes who wish to train with us and watch us. Also people with money, which we always need.” Finances are more critical than ever thanks to the £50 million in cuts to London-area arts organizations imposed by an out-of-control Arts Council England, something I describe in this piece.

We saw the balletomanes in their glory when I sat in on one of the classes, although strictly as an observer as my dancing days are far behind me. The class, which took place in the ship’s Queen’s Room on a marley laid down on the floor for the occasion, was led by ENB Associate Dance Artists Jenna Lee and Kate Hartley-Stevens, who welcomed about 35 participants of all ages and body type. Some were clearly student-level enthusiasts, but all, including the solitary man in attendance, showed prior experience with this kind of dance.

You dream your way into an all-consuming pursuit like dance, and the realization of those dreams is the sight of First Soloist Julia Conway lifted so effortlessly by First Artist Miguel Angel Maidana that she seems to float. They’re dancing the Grand pas de deux from “Flames of Paris” (music by Boris Asafyev, based on songs from the French Revolution). It’s as virtuosic a piece as they come, both dancers proving that the physical language of classical ballet is a feast for the senses.

Rehearsing on board

As Conway pirouttes across the stage, you note that she’s spinning on tip-toe, or en pointe, in ballet terminology. This requires not only special training but also special shoes with a stiff, blocky front. “I was en pointe at the age of nine,” she says during the Tuesday interview session. “I had to learn to strengthen my feet. Relevé into demi-pointe, then en pointe.” (Which is lifting yourself onto the balls of your feet and then to the toes.) “I went through many brands of shoe, and you’d always see me with pointe-shoe glue or sewing my new shoes.” It’s almost always the women who wear those shows, although McCormick confessed to trying them once. “It almost ended my career!” he said. “We do sympathize.”

Although classical ballet is at the heart of ENB’s repertory, they’re not shy about presenting more recent works in more modern styles. We got a taste of that when Conway and Maidana danced “Cha Cha and Tiara,” a high-spirited piece choreographed by Rentaro Nakaaki (himself a Junior Soloist with the company) to the bouncy “La cumparsita,” as recorded by Xavier Cugat. Maidana actually started moving to silence, and when the music started and Conway entered, they played through an amusing sequence of reciprocal movements.

Castilla also had an interview session alone with Reid, giving him the chance to tell his own fascinating story. He grew up close to Barcelona, “and got into ballet because of Bruce Lee. I went to all of his movies and discovered Lee’s use of ballet in his movements.” On a holiday in Brussels, he met Maurice Béjart, founder of the Ballet du XXe Siècle in that city, “and I had seventeen and a half years of serious training with him.”

He went on to dance with the Classical Ballet of Spain before moving to the U.S. to dance with the San Francisco Ballet. “That’s where I broke my knee, so I became a teacher and started doing some choreography. My wife and I then moved to London, where I worked at the Royal Ballet school. There I met Tamara Rojo, who was a principal dancer with that company. She went on to become the English National Ballet’s artistic director. She’d seen my choreography and invited me to become Ballet Master here.”

How does he select the excerpts? “It’s more about choosing the dancers, then making a program suited to them. And we choose as a team what’s best for the dancers and what’s best for the voyage.”

And the onboard classes aren’t just for civilians. Company members are expected to continue their rigorous training, although it does let up a little while sailing. “Classes are very intense,” McCormick explains. “Some days the schedule starts with class at 11, and you’re training right up until the performance.” If there’s truancy, Velicu know nothing about it. “I’m the one who never skips class,” she boasts during the Tuesday interview, prompting a roar of debate from the others onstage. But First Artist Eric Snyder calms the waters by suggesting that “You do what your body needs. Mind and body can seem like two separate things – in class they become one.”

At the heart of classical ballet is Tchaikovsky, and the formal program was bookended by scenes from two of his best-loved works, both featuring Snyder and Junior Soloist Ivana Bueno. First was the Act II pas de deux from “Swan Lake,” where Prince Siegfried falls in love with the White Swan, Odette in the celebrated choreography by Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa. It’s as virtuosic as it is beautiful, and confirms that there’s no question about how effectively the language of dance conveys the language of love.

They fell in love in “Swan Lake,” and returned to get married in “Sleeping Beauty,” with the Act III grand pas de deux. Aurora and the Prince – Bueno and Snyder – ran through a veritable catalogue of ballet’s most challenging moves and most beautiful tableaux. The balance displayed during the promenades, the athleticism of the lifts and turns was all concealed within the stylized grace of the dances and the magnificent assurance of the dancers themselves. It was a splendid culmination to a delightful voyage.