On the first day of the 2020 Cecchetti Teacher’s Summer School, this year being delivered over Zoom, Kate Simmons led an interesting discussion with Royal Ballet Soloist Romany Pajdak and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Jonathan Payn. The conversation ranged from their activity in lockdown, to the challenges of a company returning to work and some inspiring comments about the value of the Cecchetti Method in today’s ballet world.
These two dancers came to the Cecchetti Method in different ways, but both expressed how much they value and enjoy it. Jonathan grew up dancing Cecchetti and when he eventually joined the Birmingham Royal Ballet felt completely at home in this company that had a direct lineage to Cecchetti via de Valois and David Bintley. With other Cecchetti trained dancers around him he successfully performed a wide range of roles for the Company, and still performs today as well as leading company class where he sometimes includes elements from Advanced 2 adages. Testament to the difficulty of these sequences, some dancers choose to leave abruptly rather than tackle them! A topic which was also touched on by Romany, who commented that company class can be treated by some as just a warm up for the day ahead, and that without close correction it’s down to the individual to challenge themselves daily to develop their technique and ultimately improve. A valuable reminder for all of us to apply to ourselves and encourage our students to do too.
Romany’s experience of Cecchetti began at the Royal Ballet School when she was taught by Diane van Schoor, who recently chose her to work on the Diploma DVD project. Romany is continuing to work on the Diploma exercises in lockdown as she has found them so valuable to her development as a dancer. And as Kate Simmons was rightly keen to point out, each of the dancers from the Diploma DVD has been promoted in their Company, something that perhaps has a little to do with the absolute focus on technique, artistry and presentation that recording the Cecchetti work required. Romany commented that Cecchetti is, “Absolutely a method that feeds the professional dancer.” She has found that working on the Diploma enchainments has “built confidence” in her own abilities to take into her everyday work, and given her a greater understanding of how her body works.
So whilst giving ourselves a pat on the back for choosing to dance and teach the best ballet method around, let’s not forget that we have a job to do to keep expanding the number of Cecchetti students, professionals, teachers, and teachers in high places at that. With Jonathan’s influence at BRB and Jessica Clarke (a Cecchetti trained, former BRB company Soloist) currently Artistic Manager of the Royal Ballet School, it feels like an exciting time for Cecchetti to be making a mark once again in our national companies. With the Cecchetti Diploma DVD now available to aid study of the Method as a whole and interesting projects such as Geraldine Morris’ film and thesis about teaching the 1947 de Valois syllabus published, there is a conversation about the value of the qualities and skills developed in different syllabi that as Cecchetti teachers and perennial students we can actively contribute to.
Romany and Jonathan gave us inspiring and motivational food for thought that the Cecchetti Method is still a very relevant and useful tool today. It can produce technically strong, artistic and theatrical dancers, with a development of movement and sense of performance that comes from deep inside, which creates beautiful dancers.