'They told me I was radioactive'

Abigail Boyle in Satellites. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Beautiful RNZB dancer Abigail Boyle, star of the television series The Secret Lives of Dancers, loves the company's annual mixed-bill programmes, in spite of the heavy workload, long days of rehearsals, the chopping and changing between classical and contemporary styles and the requirements of different choreographers.

Morning class runs from 9.30am to 11am and rehearsals are tightly scheduled until 5.45pm, with one hour for lunch.

"Your centre of gravity is totally different for ballet versus contemporary," she says. "In ballet everything is up, in contemporary you are grounded down. I have a fight with my body for about 10 minutes every time. But once you have it, it's there."

Boyle will dance in Daniel Belton's Satellites, Larry Keigwin's Megalopolis and has been learning the principal role in Balanchine's Allegro Brillante.

"I love that the contemporary works come up in the mixed bills," she says. "Those works give you the opportunity to really explore new ground. I have a little solo in Satellites and Daniel gives me free rein on how I do it. The whole piece has evolved as we've workshopped it. I love that process of working closely with the choreographer."

Boyle's niggling vulnerability to lower leg strain and back injuries is well known to television audiences and although The Secret Lives inevitably plays for angles, she does have to take care of herself with weekly osteopathic appointments.

"My biggest scare was during the American tour," she says, "and they thought I might have a stress fracture. So I had an X-ray and an MRI - and it was fine. But I beeped loudly coming through security in LA. I got locked in a little room. They told me I was radioactive."