She is probably the most extraordinary dancer of the modern era. No one like her combines technique, energy and emotion on stage; not with his passion, his charisma. And even less with this rare way he has of forgetting the limits of the body. Natalia Ossipova, the Muscovite who has been shining at the Royal Ballet for a decade – explosive partner of Sergei Polunin (before the Ukrainian tattooed Putin on his chest) and Ivan Vasiliev during his youth at the Bolshoi – is a genuine artist who at the age of 37, he knows how to project his future. “A month ago I danced Don Quixote and I feel that I have a lot of energy and technique, I can last a decade doing classical and go further with contemporary and dramatic roles. Look, if not, Alessandra Ferri: she continues to dance [at 60], what a phenomenon!” he says in the online interview.
An eventual withdrawal will not catch her off guard. With her husband, American choreographer and contemporary dancer Jason Kittelberger, she has started the Bloom Dance Project. And with this company this week – from the 10th to the 12th – at the Teatre Coliseum in Barcelona, ??the only place in Spain – and one of the few in the world – in which, two years after performing at the Liceu’s IBStage gala, the star presents a party of dancers and choreographers entitled Force of nature.
You are a force of nature… How is this phase of your career going in which you combine classic and contemporary? He does it even in one piece, and that has to hurt.
Don’t tell me about it. Jason and I were laughing one day while we were working on a new piece together because he had the cheek to say that watching me do all this, it didn’t seem that hard: jumping and then spinning around on the floor, sitting down… I got angry , eh?, because he should have seen how his body was, full of bruises. Clearly it is difficult! You use different muscles: in classic you look for the center for pirouettes, etc. but in contemporary you need for example to use quadriceps for extensions… They are other muscles, different training.
Well, she looks very happy.
And I am We’ve been to New York, we’ve been to the Mosaic festival in Miami… The next thing is to do a big ballet production, but we have to do some fundraising. Hopefully we can invite great choreographers to create for me. It will be a company with a beautiful repertoire and of which, the day I stop dancing, I will become its director.
She is now an artist and entrepreneur. What criteria do you follow when inviting artists?
I am guided by my tastes. I have invited the former prima ballerina of the Mariinsky Daria Pavlenko, who has a powerful energy, because I am already a little tired of ballets that seek delicate beauty. I prefer strong women. And then there’s Reece Clarke, my dance partner at the Royal Ballet for 4 or 5 years, with whom I’m dancing Manon next month for a theatrical release. She has total elegance and a gorgeous face. I have also invited the youngest principal of the Dutch National Ballet, Giorgi Potskhishvili. I saw it on video and in five seconds I understood how amazing it was: it reminded me of Ivan Vassiliev from Don Quixote or The Flames of Paris from when we were young. And I have also invited Jason to dance, who is very talented and teaches me a lot. To us classical dancers, contemporary seems to be easy, but it is an illusion: it means working very hard. And it’s not easy when you’ve been educated at the Russian ballet school, always in your center, with everything regulated. I learned very late and I envy the new generation, because they are taught both styles.
But the Royal Ballet audience wants to see her dance classically…
Of course, when you say my name people think of jumps, technique, madness… What I did when I was young was very good and they want to see you always like this. But the fans who have followed my changes appreciate dramatic roles without these jumps: Tatiana ( Onegin ) Manon, Juliette, Ashton’s A month in the country… When the audience complains, I smile. But I’m on another page of my career, and happy to be able to do both bravura and dramatic and contemporary style. Dancers need to have passion. If you lose it, you lose the reason to dance, it becomes pure gymnastics. You have to be interested, keep your heart open. I’m not passionate about spending 30 years doing only Don Quixote and The Lake. Some people enjoy it, I need to learn something new. And I’m not afraid of doing it wrong: it means I can improve. It’s more profitable for me to enjoy my life dancing than to be the star who makes 30 wonderful fouettés.
