Since Ms. Ferri retired from ABT, it has been seven years. Fortunately, she came back recently to dance on stage sporadically. We have so many technically superb dancers in the world. Some of them are also good at acting. But in most cases, between good technique and/or acting, they show a gap to let the audience notice that they are doing their job, or they are out of acting momentarily. Ms. Ferri never lets the audience feel that she is doing her job. Some dancers say that they become selfless to become Juliet, a very dramatic protagonist. It is understandable what they are saying, to transcend from daily self to enact Juliet.
While Ms. Ferri says, “What you are seeing is not a fictitious person, you are seeing me as Juliet.” “An artist is to have a courage of being yourself.” Her statement seems to contradict with that of other dancers. Why so? Simply because her personality structure is fundamentally different from that of ordinary people. Learning how to b a dramatic dancer is not as easy as learning some techniques or steps because you have to internalize the clusters of fundamental values which compose her personality.
The common factor in her fundamental values is REAL, TRUE.
Following is the excerpt of my letter to Ms. Alessandra Ferri dated 12/15/13 before going to New York to see her performance, “Cheri”:
I am so happy to learn that you have been and are active in your artistic activities. I have searched your name at Google a few times to see if you are dancing somewhere in the world. I missed your performance of being real yourself, not “doing job.” In this busiest season, I tried hard to get a flight ticket, hotel, and I will go to NY to see your performance again on the 29th, matinee, 2:00 p.m.
Who am I？
I am 74 years old retiree who enjoys ballet class 5 days a week.
I have a very modest scholarship foundation for boys for ballet class since 2007.
I noticed that some boys have excellent technique and physical attribution yet lack self-expression, feeling, due to self-consciousness, inhibition of emotion. It may be nature and or a combination of upbringing.
If possible, I would like to offer some help to them. I have been subscribing to Japanese Dance Magazine for some time. I read an article that Roberto Bolle was very thankful to you for helping him develop, get in touch with feelings and express feelings. I wonder how you could develop real-self in yourself. You boast that “What you are seeing is not fictitious Juliet. It’s me, real me is there.” Indeed, you are enacting Juliet real. I would not expect that you do that only on stage. I understand that you have a cluster of values to respect truth, real feelings and act out your values. You regulate yourself to be approved by you, not to be approved by others.
That‘s the core of your confidence to be able to open up yourself. I want to ask you how you got those values, theories, or convictions. At least, who you think has given you influence. If I could interview you, I would be delighted.
If not, maybe you would create your website and share your cherished values with your admirers.
After the show, I joined the bunch of fans in the corridor to wait for Ms. Ferri and Mr. Cornejo to come out from the back door. When they stepped out from the door, she recognized me and said with a lively smile and beaming eyes, “Thank you for everything. I got your letter and flower.” I was rewarded by seeing such a heartfelt expression. I asked, “Maybe can I ask a few questions now at the lobby?” “I have to go,” she said. “Maybe by e-mail?”
“What exactly you want to know?”, she said casting her eyes 45 degrees downward with the straight voice of psychotherapy concentration.
“Who taught you to be true?” I heard my voice saying right into her left temple. She smiled through her nose and said, “Nobody.”
After a second pause, she said, “By myself.” I cast down my eyes at 45 degrees and said, “OK”. In the next moment, she sprang out to the other side of the hallway to join the crowd of fans. I was overwhelmed with my realization, “She is a genius.
Genius can learn by themselves. In my case, I had a mentor. But genius does not need a mentor.”, and I just walked away.
I did not feel like joining the crowd nor even saying “Thank you” to her.
I have accumulated materials about her talking in a video and article clips from newspapers and magazines. I want to analyze and portray her personality quoting her sayings:
In the 1998 video, “American Ballet Theatre,” she talks about putting both of her feet on the dressing table, and she talks without smiling, with a thoughtful face, letting the camera shoot her diagonally from her back. Also, she appears in front of the camera without makeup, with no smile, natural expression. Other dancers appear with stage makeup, being shot from the best angle, smiling, and speaking nicely to show the best possible image. She is showing her natural self as she talks:
“I don’t know what makes an artist different from a technician. I think it’s the courage of being yourself. You need courage to do that in life. And it happens the same on stage. I was born in Italy, in Milan. I started dancing really early. I think I was about four. And I had this passion for music, and I used to want to become that music.
And the only way I knew was by dancing.”
The starting point for Ms. Ferri to be a real person was TO BECOME MUSIC by dancing at the age of 4 years old. We can imagine that an innocent little girl dancing wholeheartedly, melting into the music, feeling the music, expanding her imagination. She started spontaneous movements, improvised dancing from the beginning. When she got older, like everybody else, she faced reality, which imposed on her conformity, to meet with the expectation of others, social acceptance. She must have sensed that that would cloud her personality’s transparency and her free spirit in her dancing (to become music, in her term). To be “being herself” (in her term), she must acknowledge and experience her feelings, good or bad, to keep her personality transparent, like a child.
To be able to express herself, what she thinks important, as she put it, she has the courage of BEING YOURSELF, (not to pretend as GOOD to be acceptable to others), and meantime she learn or disciplines herself to correct the side of her which is not acceptable so that she can let it out. So she is almost always comfortable to open up and/or express her real self. She regulates her values and behaviors to be acceptable to herself primarily. The common factor in her value system is honest to herself, truth, real and transparency. Being this way, she gets real confidence and can expand her dancing and acting so dramatically, as we witness.
Following are other excerpts from the same 1998 video:
“A partner is extremely important. And one of the greatest qualities for me in a partner is humanity. I mean they have to be a person before a dancer. I have to see the person in front of me. I have to pair somebody that is able to look at me in the eyes and really look and really see what’s going on inside of me. And I have to see what’s going on inside of him.”
“Something is linking me and Julio. It’s hard to tell what it is.”
“It’s like when you find the love of your life, you can’t, you don’t know why exactly. And it’s the same with Julio. I mean we are extremely free on that stage. I trust him completely. He trusts me. We hardly speak ever in rehearsal. We hardly rehearse. We don’t talk about things. It just all comes out. The preparation that’s involved in dancing a dramatic role is know and learn and read the book and then forgetting about it. Then learning the steps, and then forgetting about them. And then finding everything you know of that person in you. So, really when I am playing Juliette, I am playing me as Juliette. I’m not trying to find a Juliette that’s not existing. But my feelings come out. And my emotions, my way of being loved, and my way of hating—my whole life experience.”
She gave those statements with heartfelt transparent expressions, no smile.
The statements themselves speak out her conscientious personality. She values the quality of personality before a dancer. She does complete preparation for the role. The role is assimilated into her system. No wonder why she can say, I am playing me as Juliette.
These are the statements being honest with herself. There is no fear or reservation for being misunderstood or being taken out of context.
She is taking a risk for being honest with herself. But in the meantime, she GETS WHAT SHE WANTS, has stronger confidence, and to be able to perform so dramatically on stage.
I don’t remember where and when I read it. But she mentioned that she eats a light breakfast and lunch, yogurt and fruit, because of grueling hard works. But she said, “I am an Italian. I eat normal dinner.” She likes the Italian style of enjoying the meal as the important element of being human, instead of restricting diet by specific calculations.
Another excerpt which details her work ethics from New York Times article on June 17, 2007:
“When I do a role for the first time, I live it a lot at home for months before. It never abandons me-choreography, the feeling of the time period, the costumes.
I get really absorbed in it,” Ferri said. “Then, with the years, I don’t have to do that kind of preparation again – it all comes out naturally. It’s been interesting, looking back and looking at myself through my roles and seeing how I’ve matured as a woman. The nice thing now is that I am so free in them that I can actually improvise the role every night, and I improvise in many different ways. That is something that you only achieve through years of dancing something and through experience.”
Excerpt from Dance Magazine (Japanese), April 2014, Interview on her as a Juror for Prix de Lausanne: (I reversed to English what was translated into Japanese.)
“What is your advice for the younger dancers?”
“Each dancer has own uniqueness. Everyone has own experience, and own soul. There is no advice which can help everyone. What I want young dancers to remember is that each one’s career is unique. Dancers tend to compare them with others. But each one has different talent. When I look back myself, I never be the dancer who exel in technique. But that short-come opened the new path. I may not good at ‘Don Quixote’ but ‘Giselle’.”
Her advice is not only for the younger dancers but for all human beings, old or young. She advises that one has to know oneself well first to find a way to develop oneself.
In the 1998 video, she inferred that technician is not an artist by saying, “I don’t know what makes an artist different from technician.” In 2014, after 16 years, she implied that a technician is also an artist by saying, “…each one’s career is unique,…each one has different talent.” We can interpret this change in her statement as her maturity.
The consistent factor in both seemingly contradictory statements is that she is truly saying what she knows, believes as true at the time. Not to please others, but to be honest to herself at the time.
We cannot learn to become geniuses. But we can learn from WHAT a genius says and practices.
- “To become music by dancing”
This is the state of mind totally involving dancing interpreting music. Closest practice is to attempt improvising dancing with given music and/or favorite music. This practice will enhance spontaneity and musicality to enhance the expression of feelings, imagination.
- “The courage of being yourself”
“You need courage to do that in life.”
“And it happens the same on stage.”
We tend to give our image to be likable to others, saying nice things and smiling, avoiding offensive words and negative feelings such as anger, while we are feeling differently. We are afraid to be disliked by others because we get backlash. This is why you need the courage to be “being yourself.” To be able to afford being yourself, first, you have to regulate yourself to be approved by yourself rather than to be approved by others. It is much difficult to be approved by yourself because you cannot lie or hide from yourself. To be approved by others, you can hide your true feelings or just superficially be nice.
If you have regulated your values and behaviors to be approved by yourself, you will find it easier to be “being yourself” – there is not much to hide, especially if you hold the value, “hypocrisy is bad.“ You end up being a really good person instead of being a superficially good person. Because any one of us to live in society must get along well with others whether you be superficially nice or truly nice. The state of mind becomes transparent more being true, if not completely. This is a pre-required state of mind to unfold dramatic dancing, true acting to become the protagonist. An analogy is that we can see scenery clearly in the clear air. We can see the genuine color on the white paper. As Ms. Ferri says, “We need courage to do that (to be yourself) in life. And it happens the same on stage.” the daily life discipline to be your real self, being yourself, is the pre-requisite becoming spontaneous dramatic dancers.
- Internalize the role by extensive efforts, wholeheartedly:
“When I do a role for the first time, I live it a lot at home for months before. It never abandons me-choreography, the feeling of the time period, the costumes. I get really absorbed in it,”
Not only learn the role mentally, memorizing steps but also absorb the role wholeheartedly at a feeling level. This will give her the ease to act out herself as a given protagonist.
Again giving the heart to learn the role is another factor to reach dramatic dancing.
“Conscientiousness,” a word we hardly hear anymore. But her personality can be described by this one word.
- Simply her inner world, personality is coming out on stage naturally. We can learn to be conscientious, each in our way. After all, beautiful qualities in personality are the ultimate factors to blossom virtuoso.
2015