The thing about dancing the plum roles in ballet is that you are not the first; and with that comes expectation and temptation.
Having just completed the Sydney season as the doomed titular heroine in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s now classic 1974 work L’histoire de Manon (or Manon as both the ballet and the novel on which it was based are generally known), Australian Ballet Principal Artist Robyn Hendricks knows the feeling.
“People are very quick to tell you that they saw it 10 years ago and this person was better than that person, and that they liked this better than that,” she observes, “but at the end of the day, you need to stay true to what you believe.”
For a performer, part of this is resisting the gravity of comparison. As Hendricks attests, “It’s one of those ballets you’ve seen all the great ballerinas do, and one of the roles everyone wants to do in their career. And there’s so much footage of it. So yeah, it’s really easy to compare, or get sucked into copying somebody else.”
To counteract this, she suggests, “I think it’s about really opening yourself up to new ways, because then you find the story that you want to tell.”
Fortunately, with Manon, there is ample scope for individual nuance. Hers is a classic arc: poor girl falls in love, then gets tempted by money and prestige, and thereafter, in an attempt to rectify things, ends up as a convict in the then French colony of Louisiana before dying in the arms of her true love. Yet, despite the well-worn storyline, there remains a wealth of psycho-emotional texture and moral conflict to explore.
“There are so many emotions that you have to experience, and sometimes in one scene you can go through three or four different emotions, which is super challenging,” Hendricks reveals. “To be honest, when we first started breaking it down there was so much detail that our coach, Laura Morera, was getting us to think about every look, every gesture, every position, in order for it to be read how it’s meant to be read.”
Whilst an actor typically has text to work with, a dancer speaks in the more figurative language of movement. For both narrative and character, this is problematic.
However, as Hendricks notes, in ballet you have to experiment. “You don’t always get it right, and you kind of have to get it wrong to get it right. It can be so frustrating, because we’re so wired to just do things right all the time. But one of the things I really love about working with Laura [Morera] is being able to go so wrong in order to tell the right story.”
As an example, she cites a moment in Act Two. Having been tempted by riches, Manon is at once victorious and compromised. “She has everything,” Hendricks explains. “The jewels, the status, and she enjoys the attention. She’s at the top of the world but…if you stay in that whirlwind it can easily become a little too dark too soon. So yeah, experimenting with how you use your body in the second act is, like, key for her.”
Put simply, Hendricks says that Manon’s body ages over the course of three acts, from girlish, to womanly, to broken. As a dancer, this is the challenge of fine physical detail, of posture and carriage.
All of which lives within the context of a set choreographic structure. “For an iconic work like this, there’s definitely a style that you have to respect, but within that, you can sort of find your own way of expressing, of showing, what the choreographer wanted.”
It is perhaps one of the ironies of dance – and ballet especially – that the inexact language of the body requires such precision. And, in the theatre, a level of repeatability. Indeed, this is often the toughest test of a performer’s discipline and artistry.
“It’s a very difficult thing to come back to and not make it like it was last night,” Hendricks admits. “I’m very conscious, after a show, of leaving it where it was. So, the next time it comes around, you can be open to new ideas, new experiences, new details. And to reacting off your partner and other people on stage.”
The key to repeatability, it seems, is not to repeat. In other words, finding a way to stay true. Be authentic. “It’s what keeps me not in my head. Once you start thinking about it, it isn’t real and it becomes quite superficial or manufactured.”
In the case of The Australian Ballet’s 2025 production of Manon, the trickiness is amplified by the fact that between the Sydney and Melbourne runs there is a five-month gap, which includes a tour to Japan.
At this, Hendricks shrugs. “I actually really enjoy a little bit of a break and then working slowly through the pas de deux again. It’s always an opportunity to find a different energy or interpretation, if you have the time that is.”
Reflecting more broadly, and placing her role as Manon in the sweep of her 21-year tenure with the company, Hendricks recalls the 16-year-old girl who started out at The Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. She laughs, gives a slight shake of the head. “I’ve been here a very long time,” she acknowledges. “Like, I actually couldn’t imagine, say 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, that I would be here at this point. But here I am.”
Not comparing, not repeating, still searching for new expressions of the body’s universal language. And dying with authenticity. Sort of.
The Australian Ballet will present Manon in Melbourne from 10 – 22 October. For tickets and more information, click here.
By Paul Ransom of Dance Informa.
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