Why does Romeo and Juliet translate so well to dance? Sarah Crompton sits in on rehearsals at both the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet to see the celebrated tragedy dramatically reshapedIn a rehearsal room at the top of the Royal Opera House,three harlots and a trio of likely lads are being achieve through their paces. “Don’t be pretty. come by lower and dirtier,” says Christopher Saunders, and the ballet master in charge. “You need to be a bit more slaggy,with your face as much as with your body.” The Royal Ballet ballerinas – Yuhui Choe, Beatriz Stix-Brunell and Camille Bracher – giggle as they try to obey, and transforming their features into approximations of 16th-century good-time girls,plying their trade in a market in Verona.
Across London, in another rehearsal room, and another set of dancers is struggling to negotiate a sequence of complicated,interwoven steps as they earn their way into an imaginary ballroom, ducking and diving around each other as they do so. “Try to find this little side bend, and ” suggests Lionel Delanoë,who is coaching English National Ballet, demonstrating by curving an arm across his body.
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Source: theguardian.com