Alina Cojocaru, one of the finest dance artists working today, has divided her career across several companies. She has danced the canon of classical roles as well as creating new works with the world’s top choreographers. Her next performances are with London City Ballet, a small touring company. She is delighted to be back.
“Last season I was involved in one piece – now I’m involved in two and they’re both new for me,” she explains. “Just to be in the process of learning in a studio is such a beautiful environment. You can go in and explore, instead of having to learn quickly from a video. I will be dancing in Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition where I play the Spirit in the Castle. What is interesting is that every character has their own story. I’ve explored different ways of moving and giving the energy that Alexei wants. It’s a rewarding piece to work on because it has so many different aspects. With every movement I learn something new and I enjoy feeding off the energy of the entire group.”
She is emphatic about the importance of being able to work directly with the choreographer. “It gives an undeniable freedom because even making mistakes is encouraged.” She elaborates, “you can push yourself in your own authentic way. You have the guidance of choreographer, music and the story that you’re making. The beautiful part of it is that I don’t have to tell the same story as my colleagues or even the same story as Alexei tells, only what gives the right message that he’s after. The most appealing part of working with a choreographer is his input. This is why I’m happy to be here, to have this opportunity to work with Alexei again and have that feedback.”
Her other new role is in Liam Scarlett’s Consolations & Liebestraum. She describes the process: “It’s not a work I have done before, but I did work with Liam and he was wonderful. For people who knew Liam, you were drawn to his energy and connected with him and his way of working. We always had a superb relationship with mutual respect for each other's work. The ballet is a narrative classical work about a relationship and I’m in the part where the relationship breaks down. We have explored different aspects. There is a possibility that the man in the story is dead, so a lot of it could just be her memories as she looks down on his grave.”
Cojocaru has danced with some of the world’s most prestigious companies, including The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Hamburg Ballet. Working with a company of only 15 dancers might seem an odd choice – but there are other issues of importance for her. She explains: “The people I work with are what is really important for me. I’ve found the team here so kind, so supportive and open to exploring. I guess these are the qualities any dancer wishes for within a company and being a smaller company, I find everything is achievable and delivered. I personally feel very welcomed, encouraged. When you’re in this environment, you’re free to experiment and to be yourself.”
She continues, “at this point in my career I know how to achieve certain things. I know exactly who I am, but it doesn’t mean I know everything. And it doesn’t mean this is the total of me, because I can be so much more. However, I can only become more by being brave enough to say, ‘you know what? I know nothing. Let’s learn something together’. When I do that, it’s fun. It invites curiosity. It’s courageous. But I couldn’t do that everywhere. For example, I couldn’t go into a big company and say ‘I know nothing’, because I’m expected to know. I am there to deliver, I have to know the ballet. Somehow as a freelance dancer joining big companies, there may not be the time for such a journey. Here, there is time to explore, to find the right emotion.”
Cojocaru will be back in Hamburg later this month to dance in the famous Nijinsky Gala. Dancing the role of Julie in John Neumeier’s Liliom in 2011 won her a second Prix Benois de la Danse and it was the first full-length ballet created for her. Then in 2019 she created the role of Laura in The Glass Menagerie. It was another seminal moment.
“What’s really incredible about John is his ability to give information that makes you grow,” she says with excitement. “He’s wonderful at nurturing people. He is always so present, so in the moment. In that situation you can see what works and what doesn’t. It’s a human talking to another human more than a choreographer telling you what to do, more than a director trying to overpower and direct something. In the studio he was just a human, inquisitive, passionate and driven to create something that moves people. And I think that is really where I connected.”
Cojocaru expresses her deep respect for his way of working. “He could be very honest, but he would always do it in a way that was clear and you knew where you stood. You’d know what you did well, and you’d know what could be better. And most of all, he was on my team. He was there to make me deliver a better performance, to discover what was inside of me.” With Neumeier, she goes on to say, “we were in it together, and then you feel that you can open up to discover more and to be vulnerable. Throughout my career, I have acquired many tools of how things can work: the timing of delivering the emotion, the speed with which I do a step, maximising musicality, and how to stretch music. I knew how I could use them to give John what he would be interested to play with. He would say he liked it, I’d know it worked and I’d keep it, and then I’d have freedom to explore other parts.”
She tells me that she found creating The Glass Menagerie especially magical and says it was like nothing she had experienced when working with Neumeier before. She explains: “He was thinking out loud, so I got to understand his process. He’d say, ‘You know, generally I would like to do this, but somehow I want to resist and see what happens if we don’t do this’. He would observe and then he would guide. His main focus was not on steps but especially for me as Laura – who was disabled – it was to find her handwriting, her unique dance language, her special way of moving. I even remember the day we found it. Thinking about how to use the music helped me – Laura would hear the music differently because she wasn’t like anyone else on the stage, not her physicality or even her soul. The discovery of that ‘handwriting’ was a revelation.
“As the family in The Glass Menagerie, we were just four people most of the time locked in a studio for entire days, away from the company, just exploring. It was pure magic. I love John's work because it's created with human emotions in mind, much more than steps. You can grow with it. Every time I come back to any of his roles, it feels different and then I feel I'm able to bring more of myself to it.”
Cojocaru argues that Neumeier’s different way of operating has a profound effect on the outcomes in the studio. So too does his spontaneity. “I worked with him recently at La Scala for Lady of the Camellias,” she says. “Even though he has his book with notes, he puts it aside and he’s just seeing what’s there. He works to get the dancers to tell a deeper story, to encourage them to go deeper within themselves and I think this is really the only way we can connect with our audience. It’s not about projecting an emotion, but feeling the emotion, being the emotion, and then we truly can connect from heart to heart.”
Finally, she tells me that she thinks her work “with John has encouraged me to find this emotion every time I go back to the classics. I can go beyond the beautiful princess because there's always a human behind the princess. There's a conversation that happens in the moment and I respond. For me, the studio work is finished. I don’t have to control the steps anymore. I know the steps. They might mess up a little bit and that's okay, I can go beyond that and become another person.”
London City Ballet tours Momentum throughout the UK from 24th July to 14th September
