Inherit the legacy of Alessandra Ferri,
Ballerina Actress
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 of the cases, between good technique and/or acting, they show a gap, to let audience notice that they are doing their job, or simply 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 saying to transcend from daily self and 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. To learn from her how to be so perfectly a dramatic dancer( dancer actress in Japanese terms) is not as easy as to learn some techniques or steps, because you have to internalize the clusters of basic values which compose her personality. The common factor in her basic values is REAL, TRUE.
Following is the excerpt of my letter to Ms. Alessandra Ferri dated 12/15/13 prior to going to New York to see her performance, “Cheri”:
I am so happy to learn that you have been and are active for your artistic activities. A few times, I have searched your name at Google to see if you are dancing somewhere in the world. I missed your performance of being real yourself, not “doing job”. In this most busy season, I tried hard to get flight ticket, hotel, and will go to NY just to see your performance again on the 29th, matinee, 2:00pm.
Who am I？
I am 74 years old retiree who enjoy ballet class 5 days a week. I have a very modest scholarship foundation for boys for ballet class since 2007. http://sites.google.com/site/petitoasisfoundation
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 combination of up-bringing. 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 to develop getting in touch with feeling and express feelings. I wonder how you could develop real-self in you. 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 to 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 would like to ask you how you got those values, theory or conviction. At least, who you think have given you influence. If I could interview you, I would be delighted. If not, maybe you would create your web-site and share your cherish 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 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?”, said she casting her eyes 45 degree downward with the straight voice of some kind 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 degree 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 oneself. In my case, I had a mentor. But genius does not need a mentor.” and I just walked away. I even did not feel like joining the crowd nor say, “Thank you” to her.
I have accumulated materials about her talking in a video and article clips from newspapers and magazines. I would like to analyze and portray her personality quoting her own sayings:
In the 1998 video, “American Ballet Theatre,” she talks 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 make-up, with no smile, natural expression. Other dancers appear with stage make-up, being shot from the best angle, with smile and speaking nicely to show the best possible image of themselves. 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 a little innocent girl dancing whole heartedly 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 the reality which imposed on her conformity, to meet with the expectation of others, social acceptance. She must have sensed that that would cloud her transparency in her personality and cloud her free spirit in her dancing (to become music, to use her term). To be “being herself” (to use 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.”
These statements were given with very sincere transparent expression, no smile. The statements themselves speak out her conscientious personality. She values the quality of personality before dancer. She does complete preparation for the role. The role is being 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 to herself. But in the meantime she GETS WHAT SHE WANTS, 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, as opposed to restricting diet by certain calculation.
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 it many different ways. That is something that you only achieve through years of dancing something, and through experience.”
Excerp 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 dance 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 is advising that one has to know oneself well first in order to find the way to develop oneself.
In 1998 video, she inferred that technician is not artist by saying, “I don’t know what makes an artist different from technician.” In 2014, after 16 years, she implies that a technician is also 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 contradict 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 genius. But we can learn from WHAT genius says and practices.
1. “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 expression of feelings, imagination.
2. “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 feeling such as anger and so on, while we are feeling differently. We are afraid to be disliked by others, because we get backlash. This is why you need 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 to yourself. To be approved by others, you can hide your true feelings or just superficially be nice. If you have regulated yourself, from your values to 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 in order 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 to become spontaneous dramatic dancers.
3. Internalize the role by extensive efforts, whole heartedly:
“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 more so absorb the role whole heartedly at feeling level. This will give her ease to act out herself as a given protagonist. Again giving the heart to learn the role is another factor to reach dramatic dancing.
4. “Conscientiousness”, a word we hardly hear any more. 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 own way. After all, beautiful qualities in personality are the ultimate factors to blossom virtuoso.