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Age: 27 Profession: Ballet dancer Road to Covent Garden: It began in Bangor, Co Down, Northern Ireland, where she was born. First came Irish dancing lessons; three years in a row she was junior Northern Ireland champion. Then she discovered ballet. At 11 she entered the Royal Ballet School in London. She got a job with the Royal Ballet in 1988; in 1995 she became a soloist. So things went well? "I did Mary Vetsera in Mayerling" - one of the sexiest parts in all ballet - "in my third year. I was still in the corps de ballet. It was a huge challenge." And a huge success. |
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started to go wrong: "MacMillan
died. I don't know what would have happened if he had lived." It
was MacMillan, after all, who had cast Revie when she was an unknown.
Then there was a nasty injury and she was off for nine months.
"That really set me back. It is only in the past couple of years
that I have been getting back to the good work again." Last year
she starred in Anastasia, another big MacMillan role. And in July
at the Coliseum, Revie dances Lescaut's Mistress in his Manon.
Ballet is a dangerous profession: "It was last year. I was dancing The Judas Tree with Irek Mukhamedov. It was all going really well until he caught my eye with his finger and took the top layer off my cornea. I did the rest of the piece completely blinded. At that point I was out of control; I was being pushed around by all those boys so I could hide the fact that I was in agony and couldn't see." How is the closure of Covent Garden affecting the dancers? "It's quite hard for us having these block performances. We are so used to dancing throughout the whole year, it's strange being in training for two months. But the company is looking pretty hot; everybody is just desperate to get on that stage at the Barbican on Monday." Which is when the Royal's next London season opens Homecoming queen: In November the Royal Ballet performs at the opera house in Belfast, the first time the company has been to Northern Ireland. "That's going to be exciting for me, the only Irish dancer in the Royal Ballet." An interview by: DEBRA CRAINE
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Gillian Revie, Deborah Bull, Bruce
Sansom
Copyright Bill Cooper |
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repertory includes:
Manon, Anastasia, Sugar Plum Fairy, Mary Vetsera (Mayerling), Woman (The
Judas Tree), Governess (The Turn of the Screw), Fairy Godmother
(Cinderella), Eldest Sister (Las Hermanas), Act III divertissement (Ondine),
Zulme (Giselle), Helena (The Dream), An Episode in His Past (Lilac
Garden), Ludmilla Schollar (Jeux), Young Wife (La Ronde), Mother
(Rituals), Cry Baby Kreisler, 'A Royal Ballet' and roles in Swan Lake,
Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Les Rendezvous, Les Biches, Don Quixote,
Agon, Birthday Offering, Raymonda Act III, Serenade, Fearful Symmetries,
In the middle, somewhat elevated and The Leaves are Fading. She created
a role in Acheron's Dream ('The New Works', 2000).
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