Nerves -- they are every performer’s devil. Untamed they can sabotage a dancers’ career. Tamed, they provide an adrenalin pump for achieving your best. As ex-dancer turned psychologist, now head of dance at Queensland University of Technology, Associate Professor Gene Moyle, wrote in her article “Beating the butterflies” – (Dance Australia June/July ’06): “A few butterflies are good, as long as they are flying in the same direction.
Theatre, throughout history, has formed unusual rituals and superstitions to counter butterflies and appease the fickle gods of stage: no spoken “Macbeths” allowed, no whistling in the theatre, and no wishing someone “good luck” (which is actually considered bad luck!) In Australian dance circles “chookas!” will suffice (dancers do not tend to say “break a leg” unless they are a particularly keen understudy). Theatre has always feared failure.
To forestall failure and control nerves, dancers regularly acquire pre-show habits. They come in many guises: such as wearing a lucky t-shirt or leg warmers, having a particular “warm-up” regime, or always applying rosin to shoes even when not necessary. I have also witnessed more peculiar rituals, such as shadow boxing in the wings; running purposely late to stage; or kissing objects and stepping over cracks.
In anticipation of a performance, the jitters can, and often do, start well before you enter the theatre. Legendary dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, in a recent interview with The Telegraph, admitted that on performance day “You wake up in the morning and the nerves are starting. I don’t like that. I love it when I am performing but I don’t like those nerves.” For some, sleepless nights occur well before show-day, leaving the dancer drained, even before they step on stage.
Before a particularly memorable opening night in 2006 at the Sydney Opera House (SOH), I had been midnight mulling and stressing in preparation for the Australian Ballet’s (AB) premiere performance of Mikhail Fokine’s iconic Spectre de la Rose. Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes first performed the ballet at the Theatre de Monte Carlo on April 19, 1911. Its star, Vaslav Nijinsky, dancing the premiere, established the role as a benchmark of male virtuosity. His final gravity-defying leap through the window has urban myth status. The audience suspected trickery, as he seemingly levitated. I knew my legs would be so fatigued by the end of the ballet that it would be a triumph if I didn’t ignominiously stumble on the windowsill.
History and occasion weighed heavily upon me as the Spectre’s overture, a quiet unassuming prelude, signaled the start of, in essence, a 12-minute solo of technically challenging jumps and turns. Exhausting. And all executed particularly close to the rose-dreaming heroine. This left no margin for error. Especially on the diminutive SOH stage. My calves, as if anticipating the workout, were already cramping. And my nerves: I had never been so jittery. Focussing upon the windowledge, where the Rose makes his entrance, I began to psych myself out: “How embarrassing would it be if you tripped and fell off the windowledge?” “What if my calves don’t stop cramping?” “I’ll have to change the steps!” I threw up every worst-case scenario, preparing myself for failure.
Five, six, seven, eight -- with a blood-pumping, music-led step I sprang onto the window-ledge.
I am not sure whether it was the suddenness of my arrival or the simple fact I was wearing a 1920s rose-covered bathing suit, complete with shower-cap – not to modern tastes. But a section of the audience did something rather unexpected. They audibly snickered.
My ballooning nerves were suddenly deflated. I was relieved. With sudden clarity I thought: “They’re not taking this too seriously, so why should you? They just want to be entertained – so jump ‘Rose-man’!”
As a principal or leading dancer, these high-pressure situations are frequent. With the higher rank comes greater profile and more expectation. On opening nights, premieres and international tours – in fact, every show -- you are the company’s gold standard.
As a senior dancer I was always mindful of this, but – and this is a big but – never lose sight that the majority of the audience do not care about this. Or whether you slip, fall-over, forget a step and do two pirouettes instead of three. They simply want to be transported away from the mundane – to be entertained. Care, yes, but not so much that you cannot move.
Main photograph is of artists of the Australian Ballet photographed by Lisa Tomasetti. This article first appeared in the June/July 2015 issue of Dance Australia.
Matthew Lawrence is a former dancer with the Australian, Queensland and Birmingham Royal Ballet companies.