Amy Hollingsworth, a former darling of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, overcame a severe back injury to gain acclaim on the European dance scene. Now she has returned for a brief season, as BERNADETTE RAE reports.
It was no surprise when Amy Hollingsworth, at 24 the youngest ever principal dancer in the Royal New Zealand Ballet, was headhunted by a smart, new European dance company.
She had charmed us off our seats as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Scheherazade in 1001 Nights, Swanhilda in Coppelia, Firebird in The Firebird, Lise in La Fille Mal Gardee and in the pas de deux in Agon.
We well knew how she could shine in every sort of role, from the purely classical, to the abstract, the dramatic, the frankly absurd. We had found her mime as refreshingly clear as her line was perfect. And we had long applauded her intelligence, her musicality.
That was in 1997. In 1998 she was named as one of Europe's top 10 dancers by Dance Europe magazine.
Now Hollingsworth is back for just one season with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, before she joins another smart, and well established European dance company, the Ballet Rambert, in April.
Auckland will be able to catch her in Eric Languet's Drifting Angels and Mark Morris' Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes in the Telecom season of Halo at the Sky City Theatre.
The title work, choreographed by Douglas Wright, was completed and cast last year, before Hollingsworth's return. Hollingsworth is delighted to be back in New Zealand, albeit briefly.
"It has been a wonderful experience and a big eye-opener for me, as a dancer and as a person," she says of her three years based in Denmark with Peter Schauff's new classical company, where she starred as Ophelia in Hamlet and in the leading roles in Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake.
"It has been magical, to be in touch with different cultures. I have really enjoyed it and I still have such a lot to learn there. But it has made me really appreciate what is here, too. When you live in New Zealand you get accustomed to the beauty of it - and to what it has to offer." Time to remember that Hollingsworth is actually Australian.
She began to light up the stage from the Royal New Zealand Ballet's corps de ballet, as a new graduate of the Australian Ballet School, in 1994. Then a serious back injury, from a fall in rehearsal, confined her to bed for months and we took her to heart, although the long, agonising battle back to fitness was fought well out of the limelight.
That injury and its aftermath would have deterred many a budding ballerina from pursuing a dancing career. But the experience seemed only to temper the undeniable talent held within Amy Hollingsworth's slight frame and to sharpen her ambition, deepen her determination and lend an assurance and maturity to her subsequent performances.
She needed every centimetre of that learned grit, once she got to Europe and into Peter Schauff's company.
"It was a brand new company, specialising in reworking the classics, because those are the ballets that sell," she says. "And being a brand new company it was not the most financially secure, especially at the beginning. So Peter employed just 12 dancers as soloists. And we did everything.
"He is an incredible businessman as well as a choreographer and director, and he has built up quite a little empire. The company has gone from strength to strength.
"And I am very proud to have been part of it, from the beginning. But it was very hard work. We did 10 to 12-hour days, six days a week. Later more dancers were taken on, and the company grew to between 18 and 22. But with that number we toured three full-length ballets at a time. It was incredibly hard, with no nights off.
"Once, Denmark was completely cut off from the rest of the world by airport strikes and we were going to Spain. We didn't want to cancel. So we went by bus, travelling for two days straight, eating fast food at bus stops, and with no proper shower."
Hollingsworth confesses that after the back injury in New Zealand she became "very, very disciplined." While the other dancers took time out to relax, she inevitably headed off for extra sessions in the Pilates (a form of therapeutic bodywork) studio.
"I developed a routine after the injury and it got that I was scared to let it go. I thought if I let up nothing would work any more. I was really obsessive."
But there was no Pilates studio and therapist attached to Peter Schauff's company and Hollingsworth had to find different ways of looking after herself.
"My approach is different now. Working those long, long hours I realised I had to let go of things a bit and trust that it wouldn't all fall apart. So I have relaxed a lot and got a bit more intelligent about the things I do. It is just one day at a time, now. That's my new way of doing things.
"I have ideas, semi-set but I try not to plan too much and to stay open. Joining the Ballet Rambert, for example, is a bit of a risk for me, because I am more a classical dancer - well, I have been until now - and Rambert is a more contemporary-oriented company.
"But if it is not right then I will just change it. There are loads of companies in Europe. And I would love to dance in Australia. And back here again ..."
* halo, the Royal New Zealand Ballet perform works by Douglas Wright, Mark Morris and Eric Languet, Sky City Theatre from Wednesday March 15 to Sunday March 19.
There's something about Amy
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