Éilis, whose poetry and writing you can find on The Sound of What Happens, has tagged me in the Three Quote Challenge… Thank you, for thinking of me, Éilis!
Even though I have just participated in this one, I don’t object to joining in again… there are too many people who have written words to inspire, teach and entertain. It is never a problem finding a quote… only choosing which one.
The terms are as follows:
First, you thank the person who tagged you. Then, post a quote you love on three consecutive days. Choose another person to carry on, if they so choose and have the time. Today I pass the baton to Chloe of Sirena Tales, a dancer who I hope will participate.
“The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.” Dame Margot Fonteyn.
Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn in rehearsal. Photographed by Patrick Thurston, Daily Telegraph.
When I was a very small child, I was… like many at that time… already taking ballet lessons. My mother took me to the theatre to see Swan Lake… Looking down on the magic unfolding on the stage, I was hooked and my dancing years began. I was lucky enough to see many of the great dancers over the years, including Nureyev and Fonteyn… a woman whose extraordinary personal life made headlines as often as her gift of dance.
Dame Margot Fonteyn, prima ballerina assoluta, began her stage career as ‘the fourth snowflake on the left’ at 15 and was already 42, past the age when most dancers would retire when she began her long and electrifying partnership with Nureyev, the 24 year old dancer, newly defected from Soviet Russia.
Together, they made history.
“At the end of ‘Lac des Cygnes’ when she left the stage in her great white tutu I would have followed her to the end of the world.” Rudolf Nureyev.
The off-stage relationship of Fonteyn and Nureyev was always the subject of much speculation. Fonteyn had long been married to Tito Arias, the son of a Panamanian president who had been left paralysed by a bullet. It has been suggested that Fonteyn continued to dance for so long merely to pay medical bills. Those who say that can never have felt the fire as Nureyev and Fonteyn danced.
Simply to see them was to feel every nerve and sinew come alive with a passion and an unnamed yearning that brings a breathless lump to my throat even thinking about it, even after all these years.
Theirs was a love story unlike any other… man, woman and art.
Whatever the nature of their relationship offstage, they were loyal friends as long as they lived. They danced together until Fonteyn’s retirement at 61 and they were still very close when she died of cancer ten years later. Nureyev died aged 54, two years after Fonteyn. He had said of Fonteyn that they danced with ‘one body, one soul’ and that she was ‘all he had, only her’.
Both Nureyev and Fonteyn “took their work seriously”, living with a passionate intensity few will surpass.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Reblogged this on Barrow Blogs: and commented:
So beautiful!!
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What a beautiful translation. Typically when ‘quotations’ are thrown out there, I enjoy them and then they are lost again. But you conveyed the passion that backs the statement Margot Fonteyn made. I will carry that with me.
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That’s the trouble isn’t it? But when the essence of the statement sows a seed, that can grow.
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Thank you – that was amazingly beautiful. I expected great dancing – I got great acting.
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The art of storytelling takes many forms 🙂
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But the ballet only makes sense if you already know Romeo and Juliet – otherwise, they’d better tell you in the performance notes!
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Dance has a language and can tell a story. It doesn’t always work well for everyone, but I think there is a part of us that responds. We might not get all the details, but the essence of the story remains.
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Wonderful story and quote, Sue.
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Thanks Eilis 🙂
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That was a wonderful story Sue and a fantastic quote, What an inspirational couple these two are.
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They always were to me 🙂
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Thank you for sharing this beautiful clip 🙂
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My pleasure 🙂
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Reblogged this on oshriradhekrishnabole.
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I have watched them dance together, so much emotion, so beautiful yet painful…
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It really was a remarkable partnership. I wish I’d seen them dance this one.
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Great quote and wonderful story, one I didn’t know about these famous dancers. I love that Nureyev said they danced as ‘one body, one soul’ – how perfect is that?
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I doubt there could have been a more perfect description of what we saw on stage.
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A beautiful love story, illustrative of the passion that can develop between two people with similar talents!
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They may or may not have been lovers… but they certainly Loved.
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I read that Nureyev was bi/homosexual and was in a fairly committed relationshi0p with a man until that man’s death in 1986,
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That’s correct. Fonteyn was married to Arias for nearly 35 years too… but the speculation and rumours never died. Both were known to be loyal to their friends and their devotion to each other was never in doubt. The passion lay, perhaps, in something deeper than a simple romantic liaison.
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I don’t think many of us ever get to experience a love and passion like that. It would be nice to think they are together now. Some people just seem destined to live tragic lives.
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I don’t think love, of any kind, is ever wasted… or lost. Their offstage friendship lasted a lifetime, their on-stage beauty will last a long, long time.
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So eloquent Sue. 🙂
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Thanks, Debby 🙂
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When I was little, I was crazy about ballet and my mother’s cousin would buy me ballet annuals and magazines, which mum couldn’t afford,.I would read them over and over again, longing to be on the stage, just like Dame Margot Fonteyn, flying into Nureyev’s arms. Mum could neither afford ballet lessons nor visits to the ballet. However, a friendly local widowed shopkeeper took pity on me and paid for me to accompany her to the ballet on several occasions. Reading this brought it all back. Thank you, Sue!
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There was always dance and theatre for me… though I have no idea how my mother managed to pay for it all! I am glad she did though… very grateful to have been given such a wonderful gift and a love that is still with me today.
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