Part 3
Interviewer: Today I’m talking to opera critic Rupert Christiansen, who is in his forties and has recently started doing ballet classes. It’s a pretty unusual thing to do, isn’t it?
Rupert: Well, yes, but one consolation of growing old is that you cease to care what other people think of your views or activities. So here I am, coming out on the radio as probably the only balding middle-aged man on the entire planet to take up ballet lessons. Go on, snigger. [15]
Interviewer: I’m not laughing, I’m just interested. Tell me, how did it all start?
Rupert: Well, I have long been an infatuated ballet fan. The way most men think about their football team, I think about the Royal Ballet company- they’re my team and I follow their every move with nerdy fascination. Recently, I’ve become increasingly frustrated at my lack of technical knowledge, but the thought of having a bash myself hadn’t crossed my mind since a schoolboy attempt at ballroom dancing culminated in disaster. Anyway, many years after that unfortunate event, to stave off bodily decay, I discovered Balance, a wonderful physiotherapy gym in London, where I began personal training with Hans Ektvedt and his colleagues. Hans nobly takes me through the necessary boring stuff – weights, pull-ups, crunches – and his patience and good humour make it endurable and almost enjoyable. [16]
Interviewer: So what led you from that to ballet lessons?
Rupert: One day earlier this year, Hans mentioned a newcomer to the Balance team and suggested I try him for some supplementary lessons. His name is Julien Diaz, and he turns out to be a remarkable character. A graduate of the Rambert Dance School, he ended up dancing professionally in Berlin and Amsterdam, before returning to England tp set up as a trainer, specializing in posture and the freeing up of body language. He told me I should start doing ballet and his disarming manner soon persuaded me to drop my inhibitions. [17] I was under no illusions about my abilities but I wanted to find out about the art of ballet by trying it myself.
Interviewer: Isn’t it a bit dangerous for someone of your age, if you don’t mind me saying so?
Rupert: Well, as Julien says, it’s a superb form of exercise. He’d like to see the whole world doing ballet. It’s only dangerous to muscles if you do it day in, day out at the very top level. For almost anyone else, it’s an injury-preventative activity that tones and elongates every part of your body, from toes to fingers to head. It’s a training in balance, co-ordination and flexibility, which
gets you to engage your body and brain at the same time. [18] It’s fantastic for getting you to walk with a spring in your step, and it also cleanses the mind – there’s no way you can do a ballet class without concentrating 100 per cent on what you’re doing.
Interviewer: So what do your lessons consist of?
Rupert: The sessions last for 90 minutes. We start with what are basically bending and stretching exercises. Then we move on to the hopping, skipping and turning movements, finishing with some jumps in both the closed first and open second positions, before cooling down with some excruciating but vital stretches. This is basic stuff, but, believe me, it isn’t easy, and you have to take it slowly. I’m not unfit, but I can’t do more than a couple of minutes without gasping for rest, and it’s incredibly difficult to programme it all into one’s muscle memory. You can’t approximate – you have to get it right, and that involves focusing simultaneously on the correct angle of turnout, the complementary shaping of the arms, a firm finish to any sequence of movements, and the fluent placing of the head, neck and shoulders. [19]
Interviewer: Are you going to get really good at this? What kind of progress are you hoping to make?
Rupert: How much further can I get? Well, I’m not expecting a call from my beloved Royal Ballet. My main aim is to find out something of what it feels like to dance, from the inside – already I find that, as a spectator, my admiration for the professionals has sharpened considerably. [20] Julien has a potty notion of moulding some of the movements I am painfully acquiring into a dance, and believes that most people of my age could reach a point at which they could take the lower grades of Royal Academy of Dance exams. And Hans has noticed that my work with Julien has resulted in improvements in my regular training. He says that I’m moving better and walking taller, with firmer core stability and more flexibility in my hips and back. I wonder whether he’s tempted to have a go himself.
Part 4
Speaker 1
I know people say he thinks a lot of himself, and, well, they’ve got a point, he certainly isn’t what
you’d call modest. He’ll be the first one to tell you how brilliant he is and how hard he’s worked and you certainly couldn’t accuse him of lacking confidence. Quite frankly, a lot of people think he’s an absolute pain and steer clear of him, because he’s always going on about himself. [21] Anything you’ve done, he can top it. But the fact is, I know another side of him, the kind side that means he’ll do anything for a friend. And he’s done me a lot of big favours so I stand by him. When other people have a go at him, I always defend him. [26]
Speaker 2
She’s certainly had a lot of knocks in her life but she keeps bouncing back. She’s definitely what
you’d call resilient, and all these terrible things that have happened, she just seems to take them in her stride, and hardly talks about them. [22] I wish I could be like that [27] – I always seem to cave in at the slightest hint of trouble, I don’t seem to be able to just got on with life when something goes wrong. But she’s got this incredible strength that keeps her going – it must be great to be like that. She doesn’t want anyone feeling pity for her – she hates that and she doesn’t need it.
Speaker 3
You never know what’s going to happen with him, because he’s never the same. One time you’re with him he’s cheerful and sociable, the next time he sits quietly in the corner and doesn’t want to speak to anyone. [23] Some people find that very hard to handle and he often loses friends because of it. I think that might well happen with me because, to be honest, it gets on my nerves. [28] You want your friends to be basically the same most of the time, not always up and down like he is. I know it’s not the nicest thing to say, but sometimes I just want to yell at him.
Speaker 4
He’s one of those people who’s always finding fault with things – nothing’s ever good enough for him [24], there’s always something wrong. He likes nothing better than to moan, and my goodness, can he moan? You’ve never heard anything like him when he gets going. People wonder why I spend so much time with him, considering that he’s always like that, but the fact is I find it hilarious. [29] Once he gets going, it’s as much as I can do to keep a straight face. And, believe it or not, he sees the funny side sometimes. He’s not as serious about everything as most people think he is.
Speaker 5
You never know whether you can take what he tells you at face value or not because he makes a lot of it up. [25] He’ll tell you he’s doing one thing when in fact he’s doing another and he tells different people different things. I sometimes wonder if he can remember all the different versions he’s given! He’s always up to something – covering up something he shouldn’t have done, or coming up with some cunning plan. To be honest, I feel sorry for him, it must be terrible to spend your whole life pretending. [30] He must be very unhappy at heart and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
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