PROFILES

On 18 May, after a breathtaking performance in L’Histoire de Manon at the Opéra Garnier, Aurélie Dupont announced her resignation. COTE Magazine met the dancer on the threshold of a new life.

Not farewell for ever
"After 32 years at the Opéra de Paris I thought the time had come to look around elsewhere, breathe some fresh air. Just at that moment Benjamin Millepied [Director of Dance at the Opéra] asked me to be ballet master. That hadn't been my dream but I said yes because it was he who was asking me. He's a talented dancer and a peerless choreographer. I like his ideas, the energy he exudes in the studio and on stage. He wants the Opéra to move ahead and I want to contribute to that."

What is a ballet master?
"Well I won't be sweeping up after practice, that's for sure [laughs]! My job will be to guide the young generations, mainly the soloists, while keeping an eye on the corps de ballet to make sure there's consistency and coherence in the performances. I will teach them choreography if that hasn't been done, but also endurance, technique, investment and curiosity. I don't want to mother them, I want to teach them to think and to be responsible. All the things I lacked when I started out. If you focus too much on certain points, such as perfect technique, you can forget the pleasure and joy a dancer should feel at each performance."

Goodbye to dance?
"It's goodbye to the Opéra Garnier but not to the stage! I won't keep on dancing till I'm old but at 42 I still very much want to. It's a need, a passion. Saburo Teshigawara has offered me a creation and so has the British choreographer Wayne McGregor, for the autumn. On the other hand I have no desire to do choreography. It's a completely different craft, and it's not mine."

Missing it all
"I had been thinking about the end of my career for three years, ever since someone asked me what I wanted to do afterwards! What will I miss most? All of it! Not being a star dancer any more is like losing one's identity. Playing that part in the company took up so much time and now it's over ... these past 17 years have passed so quickly. I loved it all, I accepted everything, even having to reinvent my dancing because of my knee [six months after her appointment as star dancer an acute pain developed in Aurélie's right knee. She was told her career was over but she stuck with it and adapted her way of dancing to her handicap], and even the moments of doubt that helped me move forward. I've been thinking daily of my departure so as not to forget anything, like the magic of the Garnier stage, the wings, the jokes my dresser cracked to help me relax."

Meetings
"My best encounters weren't with my roles but with choreographers. Pina Bausch comes to mind, and Angelin Preljocaj, the first one who offered me contemporary pieces. And Mats Ek, who gave me a difficult but very enriching role, and Sasha Waltz, who became a close friend
after he gave me the lovely role of Romeo's Juliet in 2007. And Benjamin Millepied of course, who created a pas de deux specially for me."

Pina the mentor
"After dance school, which wasn't very fulfilling, I became obsessed with technique. I thought I was protecting myself but it did the opposite. I was 20, I was climbing the ranks, but I was afraid of being ask­ed to play demanding parts. I was unhappy, I think, and most of all I was full of doubts about the future of my career. That's when Pina Bausch entered my life. After an audition she told me she was choosing me "for my weaknesses" – when I thought I was the strongest. That triggered some­thing. My role in Rite of Spring changed everything."

Life elsewhere
"The idea of giving one's life to dance and then finding oneself alone at the age of 42 nibbling seeds in a flat full of photos of ballet dancers, that's not really for me! Apart from my last performance on 18 May my children have scarcely seen me dance. Georges glimpsed me at a rehearsal of Béjart's Boléro in New York, but didn't really recognise me. Jacques, the elder, [seven years old] was very upset when he saw my sisters mistreat me in Nureyev's Cinderella. I'd explained to Georges that soon I wouldn't be a star dancer anymore, and one day he suggested 'Perhaps you could dance at the Moulin Rouge, it's just near our place.' Interesting!"

Par Mireille Sartore