Sylvie Guillem pays tribute to Rudolf Nureyev

After Rudolf Nureyev escaped from the Kirov in 1961, his mission was to dance everything and taste everything that the world had to offer. Yet during the first years of his globetrotting career, he came to look on the Royal Ballet as a second home. It was here, as a regular guest, that he forged his partnership with Margot Fonteyn. And it was here that his glamour and Russian schooling left their deepest mark. Now the Royal is marking the 10th anniversary of Nureyevs death with a tribute programme. The show features Apollo, one of his favourite ballets, and act three of Raymonda, which he staged for the Royal. But it also contains a section of divertissements put together by Sylvie Guillem - a dancer with her own very intimate connection with Nureyev. By the late 1970s, Nureyevs ties with the Royal had loosened, and in 1983 he became director of Paris Opera. It was here that he first encountered Guillem as an 18-year-old junior, and his arrival changed her life. Within months of his appointment he had promoted her to 233toile, and six years later Guillem followed his example and left Paris to launch her own career as a superballerina. When I talk to Guillem about Nureyev she is resting in her large, boxy dressing room at the Royal Opera House. The room is littered with professional paraphernalia - a pink tutu skirt frothing on a chair, shoes lying on the floor, a folding bike half stacked away. There is little personal clutter, though, for this is just one of many dressing rooms through which Guillem passes. As a dancer she has become almost as busy, almost as nomadic as Nureyev was. Guillem sees this compulsion for work and travel as an obvious link between herself and Nureyev, but as we talk, it emerges that that they had more surprising things in common. While Guillem, at 38, appears at ease in her skin - direct, funny, articulate, serenely conscious of her talent and what she wants to do with it - this was not how she first appeared to Nureyev. In 1983 she was shy and mute, her stubbornness mixed with an arrogance that she shoes didnt know how to handle. Nureyevs personality was equally complex and remote, and Guillem says that in all the years it took her to figure him out, she grew to love him and hate him. Guillem was one of the dancers who benefited most dramatically from Nureyevs mission to galvanise the Paris Opera. Her talent was let off the leash by the radical new repertory he commissioned and her ambition could barely keep pace with the speed at which he promoted her. Sometimes, however, she found Nureyevs style disorienting. She thought he was pushing her too fast into some roles while withholding others from her. When I ask how she discussed her problems with him, she roars with laughter

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