Daria Klimentová: „I'm still tempted to lead a company in the Czech Republic“

Daria Klimentová. Photo: Private archive of D.K.

Author Lucie Dercsényi

I know from our emails that you that you were at the theatre yesterday. What did you see?
I went to see the English National Ballet, which I hadn't seen for a long time. So far, there are only composed evenings - respecting the bubbles regime (editor's note: a group of people with whom you have close physical contact - limited in number and social contact during the covid). But otherwise people here act as if there is no covid.

You originally preferred a correspondence interview, probably because of the amount of work you have. The Royal Ballet School is busy, it's June...
We don't finish until July 12th and now we're preparing for our performances. Next week we'll be performing every night at the Royal Opera House in London. We’re working non-stop, rehearsing on stage, year by year. But we've had our report cards written since April, like every year.

How was the dance teaching practice during the closure of the school due to covid?
Probably like everywhere else, through a computer application. We taught via Zoom, students were in their living room, in the kitchen. Schools closed here in January and February this year and I was able to go to Prague, from where I was teaching. In Horní Počernice we have a house with a garden where I have more space and better conditions for distance learning.

How does the Royal Ballet School work?
There are eight years at the Royal Ballet School, the first five are called years seven, eight, nine, ten and eleven. They are based in Richmond where they have about ten beautiful studios and a boarding house for the pupils. The last three years of the so-called Upper School are called the first, second, and third years. We are based next to the Opera House in Covent Garden in the centre of London, which is amazing.

When do students start school?
Like in our dance conservatories, at the age of twelve.

What classes do you teach?
Each year has two main teachers, male and female. I'm responsible for the second year, where I teach classical dance, pas de deux, repertoire, variations, and rehabilitation. I have the third year for classical dance as well. The theoretical subjects are finished in the second year and the last one, the third, is just dancing.

So you're pretty busy, maybe more so than when you were dancing...
Yeah, I'm at school every day from 9 or 11am till the evening. Sometimes I have four classes a day and one class lasts an hour and three quarters. We have an hour lunch break and fifteen minutes between classes. It's exhausting.

In one of your interviews you said that teaching is harder than dancing. What do you find most challenging about teaching?
As a dancer, you are selfish, everything is about you, you practice quietly or rehearse for hours and hours and the teacher talks. It exhausts me that I'm always talking now, but it's getting a bit better. In class I have to create an atmosphere, hold everyone and support them. I have fifteen girls in my class, and I've had seventeen. I'm trying to find a way to each one of them, to work with them individually, it's challenging.

What is the students' attitude like? They probably don't come in a good mood every day. Puberty is setting in…
They're amazing, you should come to the school... They're disciplined, focused, enthusiastic. If students aren't interested, the principal will talk to them if they want to dance or not. The school supports the students, if they have a problem, they have someone to go to - there's a psychologist at the school. If they have a weight problem, they go to the nutritionist. If there is an injury, they have personal rehabilitation, there are machines and facilities for that. We talk to each of our students individually for fifteen minutes each week so that they all have a chance to say if everything is okay, and we tell them how happy we are with them and reassure them that we are there for them.

How many students get into the Royal Ballet company?
There is a sponsorship scheme that pays for six students to undertake a year's training at the Royal Ballet after graduating from the Royal Ballet School. The director of the company picks who he wants, usually three girls and three boys. It's not a rule, this year he only chose three girls because of the vacancies. They have the opportunity to perform with the company, but they may not get a contract until after one season.

Where do the dancers who don't get into the Royal Ballet go?
To the best companies, of course (laughs). We have some of the most talented students. I don't want to brag, but there are some really amazing students here. I don't know if you've heard of Julie Petanová, I taught her for two years.

Yes, I know her, I saw her as a student of the Prague Dance Conservatory in The Little Match Girl. I wrote about her exceptional appearance and talent...
She had a fatigue fracture and couldn't dance for half a year, so she decided to accept the offer to repeat the year. She's finishing her eighth year now, in exactly three weeks. She got accepted into the Norwegian National Ballet, and I hope she'll become a prima ballerina soon.

Before you started teaching at the Royal Ballet School, you auditioned for the position of artistic director of the Czech National Ballet. However, you withdrew during the process. What put you off then?
I was discouraged by the lies, deceit and unequal treatment. I'm glad I saw through it in time.

What led you to teaching?
I have been teaching since I was thirty years old, this year I am leading International Ballet Masterclasses in Prague for the eighteenth time. When I was still dancing, I was a guest artist at the Royal Ballet School and then I was offered to teach here. Of course I took it, I just had to audition to make sure everything was right. It fulfils me to be able to pass on my experience. It's slow work, but when I see the girls dancing the way I wanted to, it makes me cry...

What attracts you to teaching?
I'm very interested in psychology, I enjoy finding a way to reach students, finding a way to get the best out of them. I've always been ambitious, and if I can't be the best, then let my students be the best.

When you stand in front of students, you probably think of your alma mater, the Prague Dance Conservatory. How did it prepare you for your professional career, which of the teachers stuck in your mind?
I was given an excellent foundation. For the whole eight years of my studies, I had Olga Pásková for classical dance. I was very lucky, she was an excellent teacher. Every teacher has his or her own style, and even if he or she follows a system of training, it doesn't mean that he or she teaches everything well - head tilts, postures, body positions. And Olga Pásková taught me these important details well! I also had a lot of attention from Kateřina Slavická, she literally whipped me into shape - I remember how she played with every finger when she taught me the variation from the Blue Bird. I also worked with her husband Jaroslav Slavický.

You said that teaching is a demanding job. What do you do to prevent burnout? Does the school offer support in this regard?
We have lectures in psychology, we were given instructions on how to teach well through Zoom when the school was closed due to the pandemic. There are monthly training events for teachers, most recently on social media, for example. There is also a regular teacher exchange with the Paris Opera School - we are hosted in Paris for a week and then their teachers come to us in London. That's a great experience. Otherwise, we always have a week off after six weeks, three weeks at Christmas and Easter, so we don't burn out. And I get to go to the Czech Republic.

How often do you come here?
Always during the holidays, whenever I have a chance, I leave immediately. London's great, but when you've lived here for 26 years...

And where is home for you?
In the Czech Republic and in England.

You've been on an upward trajectory since the beginning of your career. You went from the National Theatre to the Cape Town Ballet, then to Glasgow, and for almost 20 years you were at the top of the English National Ballet. You retired from dancing in your 40s and then danced with Vadim Muntagirov for seven years. It's generally known that ballet is hard work. What has been the satisfaction of the hours spent in the studio and the driving force behind your work?
Today I wonder how I could have danced for so long. So many years, such hard work. I was young, I enjoyed dancing, but when I think about it, basically there was more suffering, more negative than positive. Then there was one single performance that propelled me forward, and then I suffered again, everything hurt, I criticized myself, I had no self-confidence, the performance didn't go well...
It depends on a lot of things - what ballet you're dancing, what partner you're dancing with. I met Vadim when I was thirty-eight. I danced with him after I left the company until I was forty-eight. When I went on stage, I thought, “Maybe this is your last performance.” And that's probably what motivated me the most. Vadim and I also got along, he was a driving force for me, he's younger, and when I saw him dancing, I thought, “I can do that too.”

The director Miroslav Macháček once said that you have to suffer to play a role. Did you feel the same way with any of the characters you danced?
Physically, I suffered through every role. I didn't push through to Julia until I was 40. I couldn't get through to her for a long time, I had a partner I didn't get along with, which may have played a big part. It wasn't until I was forty, after life experience, that I felt like Julia, even though Julia is fourteen (laughs) - that's when I danced with Vadim.

What is the most important advice you received during your dancing career?
Dance like it's the last time.

Who gave it to you?
My teacher, David Wall. He died of cancer, it was terrible.

And what was the most valuable piece of advice you received as a teacher?
I don't remember. I did a one-year course for teachers at the Royal Ballet School, now two years. But it didn't prepare me for teaching at all. Teaching here is not a five-year course like at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. I got my paper and I could teach, but when I went in front of the students in the first year, I basically didn't know what I was doing. Only my experience prepared me - I drew from my own teaching activities, from colleagues who teach. It's not just about knowing the names of the elements, the combinations, that's a given, but you have to put everything together in a way that conveys the material to the children in the right sequence. The lessons have to develop from exercises at the barre from the first day onwards throughout the year, they have to have logic and meaning, and I had to figure that out for myself. Every student is different, I approach each one individually - I base it on their disposition, figure out how much preparation they need for a certain combination, element. I learn every day, and the more I know, the more I feel like I don't know anything (laughs).

I wasn't the only one affected by the recent death of Liam Scarlett, former resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet. Has it been made clear what happened?
He committed suicide, hanged himself. He was still in hospital for a few days afterwards, but his health was so bad that his parents gave permission to take him off the machines. I knew him personally, I worked with him, he was a very, very sensitive person... That's all I can say.

Do you still have time for photography or is the time when you did calendars for English National Ballet gone?
I do take photographs, I'm allowed to go to the Opera House for rehearsals, performances and backstage. There's even interest from the Royal Ballet in publishing a book of Vadim's photographs. I've been following him since the beginning, I've got quite a collection of his photographs. Now the publication is on hold because of the coronavirus, but hopefully it will get done. And in Jistebnice, the hometown of the painter Jan Kunovský, our joint exhibition has just opened, where his paintings and my pictures from the dance world are hanging.

You managed to get your name in the media. You were one of the faces of the Czech Republic's EU accession campaign, you filmed a series for Czech Television dedicated to famous ballets in which you danced the main roles, and last year you published a book interview, Life on Pointe, about your career. Thanks to you, dance has become known to a wider public. Do you still have any plans in this respect?
I'm still tempted to lead a company in the Czech Republic. To work closely with a particular conservatory, to create a Czech national ballet - it's still in me somewhere, but I don't want to go where they don't want me, they're screwing me over. I'm not into politics. I like honesty.

In Britain, auditions for prestigious companies are more transparent?
There are problems here, too. But it was my first experience with the National Theatre, I'm speechless.

Your birthday's coming up. What would make you happy?
To be with the people I love, and they love me. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen because part of my family is in the Czech Republic and part is here, so we won't all be together. I'll celebrate half a century… I'll say I'm 50 years young.

Daria Klimentová, born on 23 June 1971 in Prague. She graduated from the Prague Dance Conservatory in 1989 and participated in internships at the Tanzakademie in Cologne (1989, 1990, 1991). She joined the National Theatre Prague ballet company 1989-92, Cape Town - Kruik Ballet 1992/93, Scottish Ballet in Glasgow 1993-96, English National Ballet from 1996 to 2014. Already during her studies she mastered the high technique and pure form of classical dance, which together with her lyrical appearance predestined her for a solo career. In the large roles of the traditional repertoire, her technical excellence was matched by a flair for full role grip and natural girlish grace. She portrayed classical characters such as Kitri in Don Quixote, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake. She played the roles of Giselle, Sylphide, Sylvia, Anna Karenina, Cinderella, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, Marie in The Nutcracker, Svanilde in Coppélia, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. She has also interpreted parts requiring knowledge of modern dance techniques, e.g. in the productions Return to the Unknown Land (National Theatre Prague 1992), W. A. Mozart's Divertimento No. 15 (National Theatre Prague 1995). She won the 2nd prize at the national ballet competition in Brno in 1987, was a finalist at the competition in Varna in 1988, won the prize of the Paris Dance Foundation Lausanne-Tokyo in 1989, reached the final in Osaka in 1991 and received the 1st prize at the ballet competition in Pretoria, South Africa in 1991. She has worked with film and television; in CT she filmed the character of Margarita in The Lady with Camellias (1994); South African television made a documentary about her, Daria Klimentová, and she danced in the ballet film Midnight Dreams (1996, ch. V. Paeper). She currently teaches at the Royal Ballet School in London.

Source: http://encyklopedie.idu.cz/index.php/Klimentov%C3%A1,_Daria

Original date of publication: 23 June 2021

Translation: Kristina Soukupová