8/8/2019 The Age of Beauty

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www.mctimes.com December 2010

The age of BeautyMonte-Carlo Ballet’s star dancer, Bernice Coppieters, talks to The Riviera Times

Sitting opposite Bernice

Coppieters, you notice

how she uses her

whole body to express herself

when she speaks. Her hands

sweep from one side of the

table to the other, she holds

herself poker straight to

demonstrate a posture, curls

into herself to show exhaust-

ion, employs her eyes tocaptivate you completely.

“As a dancer you are an

interpreter,” she tells me, "you

need to give your body like an

object to a choreographer and

say, ' Voilà, I am yours, do with

me as you want.'"

 A lightning boltFor the last 20 years, the

Belgian ballerina has given

herself over to the Monte-

Carlo Ballet's Director, Jean-

Christophe Maillot, allowing

him to "sculpt" her to suit his

choreography. She says that

the first time she danced withhim it was un coup de foudre: “I

can still remember the first

audition I did for him, from

the moment I started to dance

his steps I was like, ‘yes, this is

it, this is what my body wants

to do’.” The feeling was

obviously mutual because

since then Maillot has created

numerous leading roles for

Coppieters in his ballets.

One of these roles, la Belle,

will be taking centre stage at

the Grimaldi Forum this

Christmas and New Year. First

premiered by Coppieters in

2001, the ballet of the same

name remains one of the

most popular works in the

company's repertoire.

The leading lady says that

over the years, she has chan-

ged her interpretation be-

cause, "it is necessary when

we dance the same ballet for a

long time that we evolve with

it. Especially when we are

playing a younger person,

then it's important not to look

like we are trying to still be

young." Fortunately, Maillot's

sleeping beauty is not a Walt

Disney cartoon character but

more closely resembles the

original heroine, created by

Charles Perrault in 1697."Jean-Christophe's Belle is

quite mature and the drama is

more psychologically heavy,

this helps me to not try to

look like a young girl, which I

am not, but rather do it as I

am today."

 A question of ageIf I was worried that the

subject of the ballerina's age

would be a sensitive topic of

conversation, she brings it up

quickly herself and reassures

me that it is not a problem,

simply a reality. She makes it

clear that she is not afraid toconfront the fact that her

career as a principle dancer is

likely to end soon. "In ballet it

is very scary to think of the

moment when you are not

going to be able to do it as

well anymore. Now I am on

the edge… It is a moment

that we need to play carefully,

not simply wanting, wanting,

wanting more; I don't have

that because I have had a

beautiful career so I am

satisfied and oblige myself

not to be greedy or hold on."

Despite being used to being

the star, she insists that she is

happy these days to take a

more supporting role. In the

studio, for example, she is

starting to teach for Maillot's

ballet and when it comes to

the stage she says: "Today, I

would prefer to dance the role

of Juliet's mother more than

Juliet. I am almost 40 and I

have given most of my life to

that ballet, I would hate to see

myself being less and less

good at it - that is much more

painful than stopping com-

pletely." Alongside la Belle,

Juliet is one of her signature

roles and she reveals that, for

a long time, it was her

favourite "because in Jean-Christophe's version, Juliet is

really a woman. As Malliot

told me, ‘Romeo is in love but

Juliet is love’. She is the strong

one, the one with the power."

This is typical for the French

choreographer's heroines and

perhaps partly explains why

Coppieters has been a fav-

ourite of his since his arrival in

Monaco in 1991. Tall, broad

shouldered and these days

sporting a spiky blonde crop,

the striking beauty is not what

comes to mind when thinking

of the cliché of the prima

ballerina: petite, girlish and

pirouetting in a pink tutu. "It's

lucky for me that he didn't like

tiny girls," she agrees, "or I

wouldn't have had a chance."

 At 39, her sculptured body

still has the muscle definition

of an Olympic sprinter; a

heady mix of strength and

gracefulness. However, she

insists that dancing these

days takes a toll on her

physique. She credits the daily

routine of rehearsals for

keeping her in shape. She also

has started to take measures

to prepare and recover from

big performances. These

include doing breathing and

stretching exercises through-

out the day ahead of a show

and recovering by soaking for

exactly 20-minutes in a bath

then taking a cold shower.

"This is already different fromwhen I was young. Before, I

could jump out of bed, say

'yeah!' and go for it. Now the

performance starts as soon as

I wake up in the morning."

 A beautiful challengeShe has a tough month

ahead, as she considers LaBelle to be one of her most

challenging and exhausting

roles. "We are wearing these

see-through leotards so it

feels quite naked and the

body constantly has to look

right. The positions are bea-

utiful but it's very tiring and

you have to really go over your

own limits. Every time you

dance, you never know how

it's going to be. You think 'Am

I going to make it?' and 'What

state will I be in at the end?'

 When I first started dancing it I

would always cry afterwards,

because I was dying."

She references the French

sprinter, Marie-José Pérec,

who once told a journalist

why she opened her mouth to

the sky at the end of a race:

"Before she reached the finish

line, she felt really tired, it's a

critical moment when you can

give up and let everyone pass

or you can hang on and win.

 At this point, she stopped

breathing, because when the

body doesn't have oxygen it

thinks it will die and some-

thing amazing happens, an

animal instinct comes out.

This is a little bit how it is for

me at the end of La Belle, when

I have this final pas de deux and

I have to smile and look

Coppieters with fellow principle dancer Chris Roelandt in La Belle . The

ballet is at the Grimaldi Forum on 31st December, 2nd & 3rd January

In rehearsal: The ballerina desribes the company in Monaco as being unusually close, more like a family

happy and all I want to do is

lie down on the floor. I love

that moment, you don't want

to do this last thing but you

let your body take control,

then when you finish it just

relaxes, whoosh." She folds

into herself and Iunderstand

exactly what she means.

Hannah Marshall

© Marie-Laure Briane

© Marie-Laure Briane

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