It has just 20 dancers, and it can't even pay them full time, but Ballet Ireland makes up for slim resources with dedication and ambition, writes Eileen Battersby.
A girl peers at her reflection and prepares to attach what looks like a black beetle to her left eye. It's a false eyelash, of a density favoured by Hollywood stars of the 1940s. A business-like bustle of colour behind her, as dancers move around long racks of clothes, is also reflected in the large mirror.
Some of the dancers are preparing to transform themselves into Edwardian children, wearing sailor's suits and Sunday-school dresses. One young woman is slowly becoming a grandmother, complete with spectacles, grey wig and prim hat. Elsewhere some last-minute stretching is going on. It is like second nature: nobody groans or sighs. Nor does anybody seem overly interested in a large tin of sweets lying open on a table. Some spectacular Viennese chocolates are also being ignored.
The dressing room is at the National Concert Hall, in Dublin, and the dancers are members of Ballet Ireland, the country's only fully professional company. It is the start of a nine-week tour of England, Wales and Ireland, its longest to date, with one of the repertoire's stalwarts, The Nutcracker.
Having already performed a matinée, they have rested for an hour or so, perhaps had a snack, clearly drunk a great deal of water and, now, checked and rechecked their shoes. Some are redoing their heavy stage make-up. Others are talking. They sound relaxed, but even as they sit they are twitching legs, arching necks, flexing muscles.
Larissa Law, from Nova Scotia, sits in the corner sewing, diligently repairing the Nutcracker's tunic. On a table near her a bulky grey thing is moving. It looks like an abandoned scarf. It turns out to be her foot. Ballet dancers don't sit still, at least not between shows. Some part of them is always twitching or stretching.
There is a sense of community in the dressing room. The dancers help each other do up costumes. With only 20 of them, ranging in age from 19 to 40, everyone has at least three roles. "I have one 20-second costume change between the Mechanical Doll and the Mouse Queen," announces Shannon Gracey, from Brisbane, as she balances her leg across the back of a chair.
Mayumi Kondo, a small and intense Japanese dancer who plays Clara, the young girl to whom Uncle Drosselmeyer presents the wooden nutcracker, appears to be meditating.
It all seems very good natured, but these dancers are serious, dedicated and, judging by 19-year-old Ethan Brookes - the son of a ballerina, who says: "I want to be the best" - ambitious. But they are also realistic. Money is limited. Current Arts Council funding amounts to €130,000. The company is lucky to have survived after the vicious funding cuts of 2003, when the grant was reduced from €235,000 to €60,000. None of these dancers enjoys the security of a salary. Instead they get paid only during rehearsals and performances, trying to save as much as they can for the lulls in work. "If you say you're a ballet dancer someone usually asks, 'But what's your proper job?' " says Debbie Annable, from Halifax. "It's as if ballet is only a hobby."
More than salaries, though, the dancers would like to be dancing to a live orchestra, not recorded music. "It's always great to be backstage, warming up, and hear the musicians tuning their instruments," says Gracey, who spent a season with Norwegian National Ballet, loving the facilities, including its resident orchestra, but hating the relentless dark and the snow.
"Live music gives such a buzz," adds the Sugar Plum Fairy, also known as Jessica Edgley, from Vancouver, in Canada, who danced with English National Ballet for two and half years before joining Ballet Ireland.
The company was founded in 1998 by Anne Maher and Gunther Falusy, both dancers, who had worked together in Munich. Falusy, from Vienna, trained with Vienna State Theatre School of Ballet, then joined Vienna State Opera Ballet, performing throughout Europe and the US. In 1976 he joined Bavarian State Ballet and within 10 years had founded Wiener Ballet Theatre.
It was at about this time that he met Maher, who is from Sutton. She had begun taking lessons locally as a five-year-old, going on to study in London and Monte Carlo. Together they developed the Wiener into a busy touring company. Maher, who was awarded a scholarship at 17 by Princess Grace and had danced principal roles in Europe "but never at home", wanted to return to Ireland. So she and Falusy started an Irish ballet company.
It sounds a noble idea. But also an insane one. Maher does not disagree. Despite the contribution of the Wicklow-born Ninette de Valois to classical British ballet during a long career as a dancer and, later, formidable grand dame, or the pioneering work Joan Moriarty did for ballet here, Ireland has no ballet tradition. Irish ballet dancers have always had to work abroad. There is no major professional ballet school. Ballet is even more marginalised than opera. Irish audiences associate ballet with Christmas and the now seasonal visits of touring Russian companies.
Why The Nutcracker? "Although funding was so low this year," says Maher, "we were anxious to stage two productions, to make up for last season, which was cancelled due to lack of funding, although we turned that fallow, depressing blow around and appointed a strong, committed board of directors. We chose The Nutcracker because it has huge popular appeal, particularly for children, it engages the imagination, it's magical and it is possible to stage without big sets and lots of scenery. People still love The Nutcracker." The company has adapted the work to suit, bringing an element of free dance to the classic.
Ballet Ireland, which remains on the lookout for a major sponsor, hopes to secure increased funding next year. The plan is to stage an original full-length ballet based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland stories, choreographed by Falusy. It could do well: the beauty and grace of classical ballet stimulate a feel-good factor in audiences.
Yet the form is also physically demanding, and high-quality teaching is a must, from the most basic level on to the coaching of soloists. How does Ballet Ireland find trained dancers? Only two of its current dancers are Irish. The others come from Britain - a country with an established tradition - Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe, Japan, Spain, Austria, Brazil and Sweden.
Just when it seems too easy to decide that there is no interest in ballet in Ireland, and that most of the little girls who begin ballet lessons at five have abandoned it by 10, Ballet Ireland's education unit, headed by Liverpool-born Stephen Brennan, has followed four years of successful summer schools in Tallaght, Ennis, Letterkenny and Cookstown with a formal dance project, based at St Michael's Girls' National School in Tipperary.
"We'd like to play a part in the training of the next generation of Irish ballet dancers," says Maher, who is also teaching young dancers in Cos Meath and Kildare.
But as dance becomes increasingly modernised and abstract, is there still a place for classical ballet? And, as most major European ballet companies are attached to opera houses with resident orchestras, touring has become increasingly costly, as musicians have demanded prohibitive travel expenses.
Can classical ballet compete with modern dance, which is far cheaper to stage? "Touring is vital, as it raises awareness and interest in the art form. It allows access to live performances: we have 49 performance dates on this tour. As for ballet versus contemporary dance, well, try filling a theatre with a modern-dance production."
Tonight Ballet Ireland gives the third of six performances at the historic Theatre Royal, in the northern England town of Wakefield. After beginning the tour in Letterkenny, on October 20th, the company appeared in Athlone, Naas and Dublin before travelling to Britain, courtesy of Irish Ferries, which has transported the company's truck, coach and members for each of its three British tours. "Irish Ferries has made touring the UK possible for us," says Maher. "That kind of practical support really helps."
Performances in Bracknell, Bangor, Aberystwyth and Brecon - "where the dressing rooms had the luxury of heated floors" - have mostly sold out. By Saturday evening the dancers will have given 12 performances in 10 days. Then it is back to Ireland, to perform at Cork Opera House and continue an extensive Irish tour, broken midway by four further British engagements.
No, it's not the Bolshoi. But then this is Ireland, not Russia. Ballet Ireland does have a mission. "To bring quality productions to Irish audiences and hope, in time, to become more involved in the training of young Irish ballet dancers," says Maher, adding: "Our long-term aim, goal, dream is to be a full-time national company."
Ballet Ireland performs at Cork Opera House on Tuesday, then visits Bray, Ennis, Kilkenny, Longford, Castlebar, New Ross, Tallaght, Portlaoise, Cookstown, Enniskillen, Dundalk, Tipperary and Tralee
