Within half a week it was already one-third full of my scrawl. I also read reflections by a couple of former ballet Juliets: Galina Ulanova, the first to dance Juliet in Russia; and Katherine Healy, who was one of Frederick Ashton’s muses. They contained valuable gems for the aspiring dancer-actress. Both ballerinas stressed the importance of lucidity and conviction in the expression of the story by allowing clear movements to be registered by the audience. Ulanova elaborated on this notion: “this great theme (of love powerful enough to defy ill-fortune) we had to bring out in Shakespeare’s characters, and with truly Shakespearean fullness”. Graeme’s Romeo & Juliet is set in multiple places, in multiple time periods, to emphasise the universality of love and its ability to transcend cultural definition. Considering this, what became apparent to me was the importance not just of clarity in the storytelling, but of the characters being as full-blooded and vivid as one dared, lest they risk becoming lost in the lavishness of the production. My thoughts revisited those English classes at school where I would defend the strength of Juliet’s character. Yes, she is youthful, idealistic and innocent, but she has to be convincing as someone who, in the rapturous throes of passionate love, insists on doing things properly with Romeo and getting married instead of eloping; who, amidst the anguish of her family’s pressures and the desire to kill herself in desperation, has the presence of mind to demand the help of the Holy Man as she recognises his accountability for her predicament; and who has the courage to kill herself in order to revere her solemn vow to her husband. The challenge of articulating this character and breathing Shakespeare’s words by way of physical expression, not vocal, was filling me with joy and anticipation beyond measure. I wanted, more than anything, to do the story justice.

For me, doing as much groundwork as possible concerning the character and story before entering the studio is essential. My understanding of a character needs to dictate my response to the choreographed movement from the beginning; otherwise I’m merely imitating another dancer’s response. I feel that a lack of knowledge inadvertently compromises a meaningful and honest expression of the story. This approach needs to be tempered, however, with a mind open to suggestions for making the storytelling “read” better, or even to analyses that may be at odds with your own. This would prove to be the most valuable facet of my learning curve.

And so to the first rehearsal with my Romeo. I’ve danced with Rudy Hawkes before in the fun and frivolous Coppélia (as Franz and Swanhilda’s friends), and I think the fun we had then was a nice precedent for our Romeo & Juliet rehearsals. It’s not that I ever go into a first rehearsal with my partner feeling tentative, but it’s such a blessed relief when things just work out and feel right straight away. If there is ever difficulty with a partner it can mean a number of different things – it could be that one of the pair is less compatible with the choreography or partnering technicalities, for example. At least that can be improved on. But something that can seem impossible to improve on is when you don’t feel compatible with each other, physically and personally. In this ballet I believe that a good relationship and chemistry with your partner is vital. What’s the point of dancing as Romeo and Juliet if, together, you’re unable to convey the soaring heights of passionate love and the most gut-wrenching depths of despair when faced with losing each other? Happily, after our first rehearsal, I knew that these were not going to be our problems.

Fiona Tonkin saw to it over the ensuing rehearsals that we found our own natural flow and rhythm with each other while maintaining the integrity of Graeme’s choreographic details. And she certainly wasn’t immune to sharing in the odd giggle with us! There was a lot of material to cover, so we were given two-hour rehearsals every day. It sounds like a long time, but when the process is this enjoyable, that time flies. At the end of our rehearsals I felt reluctant to leave the studio, no matter how drained I felt.

This keenness would magnify when Graeme and Janet (known to all of us as “The Murphys”) came to take a rehearsal, about a week later. The first viewing by a choreographer usually has an air of apprehension, but perhaps because both Rudy and I have worked closely with Graeme and Janet previously, and are indebted to Fiona’s careful preservation of those famous Murphy nuances, there was only a small dose of this feeling.

First up, we ran Juliet’s solo and pas de deux with Romeo from the ballroom. (It never failed to amuse or confuse others in the studio when the person taking rehearsal would suggest “We’ll go from Juliet, I mean, Juliet’s solo,” or “when Juliet, yes, Juliet Juliet takes your hand in this bit …”. It was simpler in a full call when Graeme would ask “all Juliets pay attention …”. My ears would doubly prick up.) It went smoothly and Graeme and Janet were pleased. But what this pas de deux doesn’t have in multiple technical challenges, it makes up for in the challenge of presenting it with the correct balance of intention. “At this point in your relationship, there is more curiosity and discovery than romance,” Graeme cautioned. Romeo interrupts Juliet’s moment of introspection following their initial electric encounter, pulling down his mask to reveal his face for the first time. She is overcome with awe and ardour, but checks herself and coyly retreats to the formal ballroom dance, which I had interpreted as an innocent seduction of sorts. But Graeme had a different idea. “This dance isn’t for him,” he explained in his kind, earnest tone. “You’re trying to compose yourself and be a good girl.” Suddenly, something clicked. My mind scanned through Shakespeare’s first dialogue for the lovers – the ardent Romeo wooing Juliet with this proposition:

If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

It’s a pretty full-on pick-up line. The girl is only just coming to terms with imminent womanhood and an arranged marriage. Besides which, this ball is being held in her honour. Let’s have some dignity, please! She replies with cool but flirty wit:

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this,

For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch

And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

But that ardour is starting to swell to dangerous magnitudes of passion, and she surrenders herself from the formality, her face and limbs involuntarily reaching out towards him, defying her control. Graeme’s suggestion transformed this moment for me, and it made the subsequent exchanges of sweet discovery and electricity all the more powerful and poignant as the lovers succumb to their desires.

The rest of this rehearsal, and the next couple that we had with The Murphys, were to follow a similar vein. They had much more to say in the way of choreographic details and storytelling than they did with technicalities. This was both gratifying and immensely challenging. Taking on so many particularities whilst making them feel natural in my interpretation was something that I, as an eternal over-analyst with a long-held understanding of this character, had an initial quandary with. But just as much as I wanted to do Shakespeare justice, and honour my personal interpretation, I wanted to serve the Murphy realisation of the story. Ultimately, Graeme and Janet just want to see each individual dancer’s most honest extraction, not something painted on. As Janet repeatedly says, “don’t wear emotions; you have to feel it in your gut”. This approach embodies what I relish in working with these inspiring people – they are absolutely definitive in what they seek in your dancing, but at the same time so keen to nurture individuality. Audiences often comment on the rawness of emotion displayed in Murphy’s ballets, and I would put it down to the magic that both he and Janet invoke with dancers in the studio.

Two weeks since our first rehearsal together, Rudy and I could finally put the story together in the obligatory full run with the rest of our cast in the studio. It felt great to put the fruits of my love’s labour into practice as we took our first real venture into the ballet. The support from our peers was palpable and we came out of it absolutely insatiable for our first show.  But we were going to have to wait. The following week we had a full technical rehearsal onstage, before which I referred to my notebook about the relevant aspects I needed to consolidate. These notes were decidedly more mundane than my character and theme-related musings; things like “help Nurse with middle button” and “potion vial downstage on bed before Death” set the tone. The first run onstage, when there are so many details like this and many set changes to negotiate, is never going to be an artistically satiating experience. If anything, I came out of it somewhat frustrated. I pined for that first studio call, when I could immerse myself in the story, and was impatient to experience an even greater immersion when we had a full orchestra. In retrospect, everything actually went pretty smoothly in the tech run, but all the same, for the rest of that week I felt the hours in between our final rehearsals before our first show passing through sieve-like me in a nondescript grey haze. I began to worry that I had lost momentum.

At times like this, self-doubt hovers in dangerous proximity. Experience has taught me that regaining perspective and rekindling inspiration are key resuscitators. This came from obvious sources, like a DVD of Zeffirelli’s film (my favourite incarnation of the play); and less obvious ones – repeated play of The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. I reread my favourite parts of the play to keep my mind and heart focused on my pursuit. I tried to keep reminding myself of the dream I was inhabiting. And, of course, there were long phone calls to loved ones. Blessedly, on the morning of our first show, I awoke with a sudden clarity, and a full awareness. I rang my husband and told him that I felt a little bit the way I did the morning of our wedding – that everything was falling into place, the stars had aligned, just as they should be. I was ready. Let’s see where we can take this Romeo & Juliet journey, I wrote in a card to Rudy.

I certainly came out of our shows quite astonished by the places we went. There is absolutely no opportunity in this ballet to be anything but completely committed to the story in both body and spirit. When I was out there, I was Juliet Capulet. Completely. Fervently. Utterly. That isn’t solely due to the efforts of the dancer onstage, as they are indebted to the choreographer who masterfully places the protagonist wholly inside the story. There were moments in the Balcony Pas De Deux when my heart had become so swollen with the dizzying heights of celestial rapture that I nearly wept. I was immersed. I was alive.

I once joked that, apart from achieving the milestone of portraying this benchmark dramatic role, the only reason I wanted to dance Juliet was to see on the cast sheet “Juliet – Juliet Burnett”. That was a delight I indulged in, but having now tasted and savoured those first shows, my initial aspiration to fulfil a dream has expanded in scope. I’m no longer fulfilling a dream; I’m fulfilling a need.

Read Juliet’s first post, in which she begins her immersion in the role of Juliet Capulet.

Romeo & Juliet is sold out in Sydney, but you can still get tickets for the 2012 seasons in Brisbane and Adelaide. It will also travel to Perth in 2012.

My journey with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet actually began before I was born. My parents went to see John Bell’s Nimrod Theatre production of the play in 1979, starring a fresh-out-of-Mad Max Mel Gibson and Angela Punch in the titular roles, with designs by Kristian Fredrikson. It was the first Shakespeare play Mum had been to see since arriving in Australia from her home in Indonesia, and it had a great impact on both her and my Dad. A former thespian in her brother Rendra’s trailblazing Bengkel Teater, and a Shakespeare obsessive from the time her father first read her The Merchant of Venice as a young girl, she muses that perhaps the connection with family back home was one reason she felt strongly about this performance. Four years later, Mum held newborn me for the first time, and says that although “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, I was named Juliet.

“What’s in a name?” I don’t know whether it was Dad reading my sister and I Shakespeare at bedtime, or the fact that Dire Straits’ Romeo and Juliet was on steady rotation at home, but I’ve always felt a great affinity with mine. I became completely enamoured of the play when studying it in high school, and when it came to open discussion, would fiercely defend Juliet’s character when others dismissed her as an impulsive, naive fool. I refused to accept these curt allegations and my stubbornness drove me to delve into the deepest layers of the true Juliet. It was at about this time that I was rendered utterly breathless by a video of Alessandra Ferri dancing Juliet, and something became clear. One day, I had to dance the role.

It’s fine to dream about such things, but for that dream to transpire in a production by Graeme Murphy, whose choreography was formative in my aspirations to become a dancer – well, I’m still overwhelmed.

Virtually as soon as my name went up on the cast sheet, I was in research mode. I unearthed my school copy of Romeo and Juliet and ordered a bunch of different ballet manifestations on DVD. I got in so deep with a book given to me by my mother-in-law, Juliet by Anne Fortier (a fascinating and romantic novel based on the true origins of the story in Siena, not Verona), that I read it twice within a week. Prokofiev’s score would become a daily soundtrack.

After learning the choreography and doing little bits of rehearsal before the premiere season in Melbourne, it was a month before I got to really knuckle down in the studio and rehearse the role properly. After an inspiring career development trip in London, I was feeling galvanised and voracious. Things kicked off with a couple of intense solo rehearsals with principal ballet mistress Fiona Tonkin. Coming back to Graeme’s choreography is always a bit of a shock to the system because it’s quite a departure from the classical ballet we practice in class. I had to reacquaint myself with that “Murphy back” as we affectionately refer to it here, and coax my feet into his trademark intricate footwork. Having danced his ballets for quite a few years now, I’ve become well versed in his nuances and am able to approach the choreography with a knowledge of what both he and Janet Vernon will want to see.

The wonderfully judicious Fiona and I worked together on both the steps and intention from the get-go. We dissected movement phrases to find their purpose, while lines from the play danced around in my head. By the time we got around to Juliet’s solo after the altercation with her parents, Paris and the Nurse in Act 2, I almost felt like crying out “is there no pity sitting in the clouds, that sees into the bottom of my grief?” I’ve discovered that there is no other way to prepare for a narrative ballet. It’s different to an abstract piece, where one simply learns to speak the choreographer’s language while getting their steps technically precise with the music. Already, the dancer is inadvertently stamping the choreography with their own interpretation. Then you can build on that as you gain a deeper understanding of intention and become more attuned to the music, thus infusing your performance with an extra dimension – the steps cease to be mere steps. In this rehearsal, Fiona wasn’t letting me get away with the slightest of slips – even though the movement is more contemporary and free, every step must be exact and on the music in order to clearly convey the story. And she certainly wasn’t going to let me get away with running the solos only once!

When I rehearse I seldom look directly at my reflection in the mirror as I find it impedes movement and projection (not to mention making you continually over-critical!). With Fiona’s watchful eye, I can always trust that she is going to fulfil the role of the mirror, checking each line for its optimum aesthetic beauty. How lucky all our dancers are to have her wisdom, eagle eyes, and grasp of technique and storytelling at our disposal.

When I got home in the evening, I couldn’t switch my mind off from the day’s rehearsal. My mind was brimming with ideas on how to articulate the story better through movement. I’d be standing at the kitchen bench, brain busy with thoughts and hands busy with food preparation, and occasionally my face would burst into the emotion of the phrase I was thinking through. The DVDs had arrived in the mail, and my school copy of Romeo and Juliet was lying auspiciously on my bedside table. The immersion had commenced.

I bet Mum and Dad didn’t realise all those years ago what they would begin.

Read Juliet’s next post about her final preparations for this dream role – and the performance!

Romeo & Juliet is sold out in Sydney, but you can still get tickets for the 2012 seasons in Brisbane and Adelaide. It will also travel to Perth in 2012.

Having been away a few weeks, nearing the end of my stay and feeling a little overwhelmed by the influx of information and inspiration, it became necessary to seek momentary refuge for recollection and reflection. Oddly, I was to find it in the half-hour train ride to Covent Garden (London’s Tube is not generally regarded as conducive to quiet introspection). What do you want to get out of this? I asked myself. What have you already learnt? Have you learnt enough?

I became a master of notes and lists, and quite possibly had enough material for the world’s first ballet dancer memoirs written entirely on the Tube. I just didn’t want to forget anything I had seen, heard or felt.

The dress rehearsal for The Royal Ballet’s Mixed Bill programme had finally arrived. I would be able to observe the final stages of production after seeing rehearsals of Limen in the studio and Marguerite and Armand onstage. It was interesting for me to note that there was one final dress rehearsal during the day, then the next day was the two first performances – a matinee then an evening show (at The Australian Ballet we have an afternoon and evening dress rehearsal, followed the next day with notes in the afternoon and the opening night show). I asked Steven McRae, an Australian and Principal Artist, which of these shows was considered the ‘opening night’ – something that we tend to place great importance on at The Australian Ballet, being the night that most critics and dignitaries come to watch. He explained that there really wasn’t a huge deal made about it at The Royal, probably because the London critics may come to any of the shows, but perhaps also because the first show is in the afternoon. This got me thinking. Why do we get so flustered about ‘opening night’ and why must it be so onerous? Surely it’s enough for us to be worrying about everything running smoothly for our first performance? We shouldn’t magnify that with our own expectation of the perfect show just because there are audience members with notepads. Every performance is just as important as the opening night, not just for our own journey with the roles we are performing, but also because every night the audiences are paying the same price for tickets! Shaking off that ‘opening night’ yoke and shifting our focus to internal motivations, not external ones, is of course easier said than done.

The Saturday evening performance – whatever it was, opening night or second show – was utterly transporting. Mixed Bill was an apt title, starting with the sinewy contortion and ethereal modernity of Limen, then moving to the poignant and glamorous drama of Marguerite and Armand, and finishing with the restrained poetry of Requiem. The three works were a great showcase for the diversity of the dancers, who pushed all that hard work of the last few weeks over the edge, giving their performance that extra dimension and inexplicable magic. Kenneth MacMillan’s imagining of Fauré’s devastatingly beautiful Requiem was particularly close to my heart. I had enough trouble keeping the tears in check when dancing onstage in Stephen Baynes’ version this year, so watching the dancers move, albeit in a very different way, to music that was familiar to me was both intriguing and deeply moving.

A few days later I was to be served a lovely slice of The Royal Ballet’s important past and exciting future when I watched a rehearsal of MacMillan’s Manon. Three generations of the company were in the studio, with young Principal Artists Lauren Cuthbertson and Sergei Polunin being coached for their debuts in the lead roles by English Prima Ballerina Dame Antoinette Sibley (MacMillan’s original Manon) and recently retired Principal Jonathan Cope (a former Des Grieux). Even though it was early days, I could see the promise of two beautiful interpretations. Lauren is around the same age as me, so I felt that Antoinette’s corrections and pearls of wisdom could be applied to myself. She was adamant about forgetting “pretty feet” and technique and using the whole body to convey emotion. It reminded me of one of Anna Pavlova’s famous quotes: “We learn 5^th position to forget it” – certainly all the more valid for great narratives like Manon. I’d love to tackle this role one day, with its many layers and ambiguity. I can’t wait to hear how Lauren grows into it.

Being a great lover of visual arts, whenever I return to London I make sure to pop in to a gallery or two. My visit this time around coincided with the Degas and the Ballet exhibit at the Royal Academy, for which I had initial mixed feelings. I love impressionism but have always had reservations about Degas’ famous ballet paintings. The seemingly pastel-perfect representations of ballet dancers are the kind of images that tend to haunt a ballet dancer as we try to dispel that cliché and replace it with a more contemporary, athletic and human image. But I needn’t have worried. This fascinatingly curated exhibition showed the influence of early photography, namely photosculpture, on Degas and the way he appropriated some of the techniques – such as creating multiple sketches of the dancer from different angles – in order to capture movement in both its most dynamic and quiet forms. I had seen many of these paintings before, but now I was admiring them in a new way; the dancers in them were no longer mere romanticised imaginings, but unapologetically beautiful flesh and blood, dancing in all their gutsy glory across the walls of the Royal Academy. I’m one to stand for long periods in front of paintings, and more than once that day, as my eyes traced the line of movement in Degas’ dancer, I could sense my body responding and moving with the painting. Yet again in London, I was making a nuisance of myself, dancing in public.

The week before I had started some private coaching with the Royal’s ballet mistress, Ursula Hageli, for Odette/Odile’s variations from Swan Lake. She had learnt the role from the great Svetlana Beriosova, and asked before my first session whether I wanted to learn a more modern version or “what Svetlana taught me”. Well, you can guess which I opted for. I adore old photos of dancers like Anna Pavlova, Tamara Toumanova, Margot Fonteyn and Beriosova. There is something so glamorous, so feminine, so beautifully pure about the carriage of their bodies that has gone out of fashion in ballet today. Ursula, in a lamenting tone, stressed to me the importance in the great classic ballets of using that carriage, which places the weight further forward than today’s technique, to convey the nuances of the choreography authentically.

In our first session, I marvelled at Ursula’s attention to the details of these nuances for the dual roles of the swan queen, and particularly the contrast between the two. “Odette is sad, so the body’s energy is descending into the ground from above,” she told me, reaching her head and arms skywards in a pleading motion, and dropping them in a great sigh. Then she bolted upright, proud and stern, and continued: “but Odile is pulling the evil energy upwards from the ground beneath her,” as she bent deeply towards the floor, summoning up some imaginary dark spirit from below the lino.

Ursula proceeded to make me repeat the entrance for Odette’s Act II variation over and over until I really looked like a swan flying in from above, not like a ballerina announcing the start of a solo. She described my arms as wings, and swans as regal, big birds, not soft insipid creatures. I was having trouble with an arabesque turn that rotates upstage, and when she asked me to imagine that I was turning because I was being manipulated and pulled by the spell of Rothbart, I forgot about the technicalities of the turn and just put myself in the character and intention. It worked.

I was so honoured to be sharing in the legacy of Beriosova, and not just learning how I could look more like ballerinas in those old photos, but about the craft of ballet storytelling. Too often dancers and audiences alike can become overly swept up in the excitement of technical pyrotechnics, of dazzling fouettés, multiple pirouettes and gravity-defying ménages. But what are these things without the context of expression and storytelling? Mere acrobatics. I find it difficult to believe that achieving these technical tricks is the sole motivator for any dancer. A dancer, after all, is an artist. It can be hard when we spend hours every day perfecting that technique to remind ourselves of that.

This Swan Lake coaching would segue nicely into my next stop: Amsterdam. I wanted to see the Dutch National Ballet in action, especially in a classic like Swan Lake, with a nod to what my comrades at The Australian Ballet were doing back home: creating Stephen Baynes’ production of the ballet for next year.  How divine it was when, in my first walk around the ridiculously charming canals of the city, I stopped canal-side as a lone swan glided casually past.

Company class was with senior ballet master Rinat Gizatulin, who entertained us by referring to my friend and ex-Australian Ballet Senior Artist Remi Wortmeyer as ‘Number 15’ (which is what he ranked in Dance Europe’s latest poll of the best dancers in the world). The dancers here are wonderfully physical, with extensions to heaven and lithe, supple bodies. But what really charmed me was the company’s mash-up of nationalities, with the symphony of different languages ringing around the corridors and dressing rooms. The meshing of multiple influences made them as exciting to watch in the studio as onstage, with different approaches and training all culminating in an excellent result. It got me thinking about my own approach to work, and whether I am working in an optimum, instinctive manner or just operating on habit and what I’ve been taught as the correct way. I could certainly take home with me the influence of observing a variety of dancers at work in very different ballets over the past month.

I returned to The Royal Ballet in London for a couple of days, which marked the end of my month away. It absolutely flew past me – perhaps not so much like a sweeping, elegant swan, but more like a busy, backwards-and-forwards, hovering hummingbird, sipping out the sweet nectar of a beauteous flower. There really is nothing like a change of air to recharge the batteries and replenish the soul. I know that my time overseas has been formative in my career development, and I will use all the tools I have acquired over here to get the most out of my dancing well into the future.

On one of my final days at the Royal Opera House I was sitting on a banquette in the dancers’ common area, looking out towards Big Ben over the rooftops of Covent Garden and Trafalgar Square, when I felt this enormous pang of homesickness. It was then that I realised how strong my loyalty is to The Australian Ballet. Beholding the rich history of The Royal Ballet from behind the scenes was extraordinary and an experience I treasure and will never forget, but it also made me so proud of our own history and identity. The pang turned to an incessant itch to get back home and into the studio, and put into action all these wonderful things I had learnt. I am so grateful to have been granted this opportunity. I wish that every dancer, no matter what their level of experience, could have the same journey.

Catch up with all Juliet’s adventures! In her first post, she takes class with The Royal Ballet; in her second, she watches rehearsals for Wayne McGregor’s new work and performances at the Royal Opera House; in her third, she visits the Royal Ballet of Flanders in Antwerp.

A source of constant fascination for an Australian visiting London is the city’s proximity to Europe. That you can be in Switzerland in a couple of hours, or just spend a casual day shopping in Paris, is an unending novelty when you’ve grown up in a country where it is a five-hour flight to get from one side to the other. So in planning my trip I wanted to exploit London’s geographical advantage, and of course round out my experience, with a couple of trips to companies in Europe. This weekend my first stop was Antwerp, Belgium, to visit another royal ballet.

One of my closest friends, Chris Hill, used to dance with The Australian Ballet and now dances at the Royal Ballet of Flanders. He kicked me off on an unseasonably warm day in true Belgian style with waffles for breakfast – great fuel for a sweaty class with Ballet Master Christiane Marchant (I love the political correctness of these European ballet companies, who use this title for men and women). It felt strange to be doing class on a Sunday, usually my day off, and I was informed that this is quite common for European companies, who will perform a matinee on Sunday and then have Monday off. At first I thought this was an odd arrangement, but being able to go to the bank and run other errands during business hours and sleeping in when everyone else was cursing Mondayitis certainly has its appeal. Do these dancers experience Tuesdayitis, I wondered?

After class ended I was eager to see the dancers in a direct transition from studio to stage. As they are renowned for their vibrancy and proficiency in contemporary repertoire, I had long been harbouring the anticipation of seeing them in William Forsythe’s 1987 classic (and one of my personal favourites) In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated alongside two pieces I hadn’t seen: Jorma Elo’s Lost by Last and David Dawson’s The Third Light.

A familiar feeling overcame me as I was watching In the Middle. The same one I had felt watching Wayne McGregor’s rehearsal last week at the Royal Opera House: an acute case of dance envy. There’s something about the explosive physicality, the pulsating industrial soundtrack and Forsythe’s cheeky classical ballet references that set my heart aflutter. Dawson’s piece also floored me with its transcendent beauty and the sincerity of the performers.

The Royal Ballet of Flanders has recently been under threat because of a government proposal to merge them with the Flemish Opera under the directorship of a state-appointed supervisor, ultimately compromising artistic vision and undermining the company’s excellent reputation. It’s frightening to see such ignorance in Europe, the birthplace of ballet, where the arts and culture don’t play such a secondary a role as they do elsewhere in the world. The proposal has been passionately challenged by artistic director Kathryn Bennets, and recent hearings seem to have been sufficient in strengthening the company’s case, but the future remains uncertain.

I returned to The Royal Ballet to find that guest teacher Loipa Araujo was in residence for the next few weeks. I’d heard about the Cuban former ballerina’s arduous class, but this hearsay was inadequate warning. The fast-paced barre went for 40 minutes (it usually lasts up to 30), with exercises progressing through tendus with weight transfers, battement cloches, pliés and stretches before you’d even gone around to the second side to repeat the combination straight away. Wonderful for getting the heart rate up. And if you’re into sauna-esque levels of sweat emission. I struggled the first couple of classes, but couldn’t believe how ‘on top of my legs’ I felt by the end of the week.

I went ‘out front’ again at the Royal Opera House to watch another cast in Jewels, and found it fascinating to observe the difference. I don’t agree with comparing dancers, mostly because I don’t think it’s fair or at all accurate to liken two or more very individual artists and their interpretations. So, although I wasn’t weighing up their performances, I did find myself questioning why I was moved by one dancer more than another in the same role, and what aspects (both technical and artistic) of their performance succeeded from an audience perspective. However, more than anything I was letting myself sit back and enjoy the sheer beauty of it all. It was official now: I was falling in love with ballet all over again.

Contemporary choreographer Akram Khan, famous for collaborations with Sylvie Guillem and Juliette Binoche, was to provide my next hit of inspiration. DESH is an autobiographical solo work in which he depicts his struggle to connect to his Bangladeshi heritage amidst the incongruity of living and bringing up his child in London. Frenetic solos alternated with spoken word and mesmerising interaction with whimsical sets, uniting to form a visceral and touching piece of dance theatre. I was worried that an autobiographical solo show might border on the self-indulgent, but Khan’s work managed to express the themes of his own detachment, bewilderment and soul-searching as universal. I left the theatre misty-eyed and emotional, and with a cemented love of dance theatre and its seemingly endless storytelling possibilities.

The three very different shows I saw this week, and what I gained from each of them, made me realise how important it is for a performer in any art form to step offstage and join the audience. For a dancer you can see, in a technical and artistic sense, what works onstage and what really matters from an audience perspective. But more importantly, you will be reminded of all the reasons you gave up your teenage social life, put your body through hell, and continue to persevere through long working hours and gruelling seasons in this crazy profession. I used to think that watching from out front was a privilege; now I am sure that it is essential.

Read Juliet’s first post, in which she takes class with The Royal Ballet, and her second, featuring rehearsals for Wayne McGregor’s new work and performances at the Royal Opera House

During the week, I sat in on a rehearsal of Wayne McGregor’s Limen. Wayne is the resident choreographer of The Royal Ballet; I had the privilege of working with him when he choreographed Dyad 1929 on us in 2009, so I was particularly excited to see him creating on dancers with whom he works on a regular basis. Opening night of the Mixed Bill was in a little over a week, so the cast were at the stage of running each movement, but not yet without the odd stop and start. I was grateful for my timing, because I was curious to observe these intermediate stages of producing a work, to see how these dancers operated in a scenario all too familiar to me.

What ensued was a major case of dance envy. I watched in awe as Wayne eked out the very limitations of the dancers’ physicality, and then some. At one point he said to one of his dancers: “It’s great, but you’re not in the movement. You look like you’re thinking of the next step all the time. Be in each movement.” The dancer repeated the sequence and the effect of Wayne’s words were transformative. I watched Wayne magic his technique of using sound cues – “whooaaaahh” was my favourite – to dictate different movement qualities. It was fascinating to watch the ways he continually pushed for greater results out of dancers who understood his movement language. What it took to keep me sitting there like a stealthy sponge; to resist my overwhelming urge to get up and join in the dance.

I walked out of the Royal Opera House and found myself stalking the streets of Covent Garden, trying to look pedestrian while inconspicuously contorting my ribcage, arching my wrists and fingers and undulating my shoulders and neck. I just couldn’t help myself. To say Wayne’s work has an effect on me and my most primal urge to dance would be an understatement.

The next day I had the opportunity to watch a stage call of Frederick Ashton’s iconic piece Marguerite and Armand. The Ballet’s associate director, Jeanetta Laurence, ushered me through brass-bedecked wooden doors and into the deep red-and-gold majesty of the auditorium. I was already under the spell of times gone by. Jeanetta then proceeded to relate a brief history of this ballet and its origin with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in 1963 (their impassioned performance gave rise to speculation about their offstage relationship); the symbolism of the Cecil Beaton designs; Ashton’s alleged wish for it not to be danced by anyone other than its originators; and how Sylvie Guillem, famous as Nureyev’s protégée at the Paris Opera Ballet, revived and danced it in 2000 with The Royal Ballet. Now I was truly spellbound – how extraordinary was this sweeping vignette of Royal Ballet history, played out by some of its most important characters, and continuing in front of my eyes right now. And I had a behind the scenes, access all areas pass.

I settled down in a red velvet chair, feeling very at odds with my surrounds in my unglamorous practice gear, as established Spanish ballerina and acclaimed dancer-actress Tamara Rojo took to the stage with up-and-coming Ukraine Principal Artist Sergei Polunin, aged 21. Their respective maturities made their partnership comparable to the Fonteyn-Nureyev dynamic, but the weight of their predecessors would make pulling this piece off no mean feat.

Half an hour later, I was choking on tears. Even though this was a rehearsal, with no orchestra (albeit with a brand new Steinway piano) and costumes but no make-up, both artists were giving everything of themselves to the story. Or, if they weren’t, they’ll sure have an embarrassingly abundant wealth to give when it comes to the show.

The next night I was back in the auditorium, having ditched the practice gear for a vintage frock I had bought the day before, to see the company perform Jewels, George Balanchine’s full-length abstract tribute to classical ballet. The majestic grandeur of the Royal Opera House couldn’t be a more appropriate setting for the dazzling beauty of Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds. However the most precious jewel this evening was Marianela Nunez in the Diamonds pas de deux, partnered by Thiago Soares.

I had spent the week being overwhelmed with inspiration, from rehearsal studio to stage, and this performance served as the perfect climax for such a bounty of privilege. It takes a true master of our art to bring such depth of feeling, honesty and unassuming humanity to such a grandiose representation of classical ballet. I left the Opera House that evening astounded, and galvanised.

Read Juliet’s first post, in which she takes class with The Royal Ballet, learns a new technique and takes a peek inside the Royal Opera House dressing rooms.

In the final hours of the long flight to London, I pulled out my UK landing card and started to fill it out in a semi-dazed stupor. At the section asking for the purpose of my trip I almost ticked the box that said ‘Work’, but then a reflex jolted from within, and I withdrew. It wasn’t so much the montage of tales dancing around my head of disasters involving absent working visas and suspicious immigration employees. It was the box next to it, which said ‘Education’. Despite a suitcase full of pointe shoes and practice clothes, and the fact that I had nearly ten years of dancing professionally under my belt, it didn’t take me long to decide which box was more applicable to my pursuits over the next month. I had come here to learn.

The Khitercs Hirai Scholarship would enable me to develop my career by facilitating work experience with other ballet companies. Life in a ballet company can be an insular existence; the scholarship affords the recipient the chance to expand their horizons by working with another company of their choice – essentially, being a member of that company for a period of time. The Australian ballet world is at the mercy of the geographical forces; as it’s hardly a convenient stopover between the two primary strongholds of dance – UK/Europe and America – we get little in the way of visits from international companies. So sending a dancer overseas also means they can watch as many shows as they need to rejuvenate their aspirations. This trip was, hopefully, going to be a reawakening of the mind and soul.

When David McAllister told me I was one of the lucky recipients for this year, I knew where I wanted to go straight away. As a student of 16, I was actually set to finish my study at The Royal Ballet School, but after a homesick month there decided to go to The Australian Ballet School instead. So I’ve always wanted to return to London to taste what might have been my destiny. Besides that, I’ve long admired the company’s traditional English style, and today its additional reputation as a multicultural tour de force; it has some of ballet’s brightest stars amongst its Principal Artists.

On my first day at the Royal Ballet, London was being gloriously defiant, with warmth and sun temporarily casting aside its notoriety for grey and cold. Sitting on the Tube, I instinctively scrolled to listen to The Kinks on my iPod. Just as it was playing their ode to Carnaby Street in the swinging 60s, I found myself shuffling apace with a military file of commuters up to the surface at Covent Garden station.

I don’t know how, but I found the stage door at the Royal Opera House straight away. Perhaps it was a dancer’s intuition. Intuition and initiative, I thought to myself, were going to be very important in the next few weeks. With no real structure to my day, apart from morning class, I was going to have to operate these devices a lot in order to get the most out of this experience. You’re on your own now. Butterflies teased at my insides.

I was met at stage door and shown to a dressing room by one of The Ballet’s staff. When I walked into the vast De Valois Studio and was greeted with warm welcoming smiles by dancers sprawled on the floor, languidly limbering, my butterflies eased. Soon some old friends from my brief stint at The Royal Ballet School welcomed me with embraces that reassured me that I wasn’t completely alone.

Today’s class was to be taken by former Sadler’s Wells ballerina Elizabeth Anderton. Feeling decisive and geared up for work, I placed myself at the barre next to my friend, Soloist Kristen McNally, as ‘Betty’ called the dancers’ attention for the first exercise.

“We’ll do the usual warm-up, facing the barre. Ready, AND…!”

I obediently turned to face the barre, but if I had looked straight ahead as the other dancers were doing, all I would have to guide me through the ‘usual warm-up’ was a window framing a view of the rooftops of Covent Garden. Unhelpful. And so I faked my way through the warm-up with my neck craning back over my shoulders, following along with the other dancers as best I could. This was not really the start I was hoping for.

Betty proceeded to set the rest of the barre exercises with almost as much haste, and though I had a bit of trouble keeping up, I soon got the hang of things. And then she started singing. With great gusto.

I leaned over to Kristen between exercises: “You didn’t warn me about the singing!”

After the initial giggle, I found myself smiling and humming along with Betty. I soon realised that this humming was helping my movement. There’s nothing like nervous energy to wrap you up with tension, like a mummy stiffened with bandages. The humming generated vibrations in the chest and throat that relaxed the respiring organs, neck and upper body. What had come across as Betty’s eccentricity actually turned out to be a very useful movement aide. I hadn’t been in the building an hour yet, and I already had an exciting new tool to take away with me.

Towards the end of class, Artistic Director Dame Monica Mason appeared in the studio to welcome me with humbling sincerity. I thanked her profusely for having me, and thinking that was it, started to walk away. But then she proceeded to tell me that she had organised some coaching for me with their ballet mistress Ursula Hageli, made sure I had tickets for the shows, and told me that if there was anything else I needed, I shouldn’t hesitate to ask. Before I came here, I had reasoned to myself that the company would be very busy putting on three different shows within one month, so being low on the priority list, I would be doing a lot of organising myself. I was touched and taken aback by this generosity, and once again felt a lot less alone.

After class, Kristen took me in to the dressing room. A spacious, light-filled room, it was packed literally floor to ceiling with dancer accoutrements – pointe shoes, toiletries, costumes and rehearsal gear – wedged in and around dressing tables and lockers. Window seats stretched invitingly under large windows overlooking Covent Garden Piazza, and photos of loved ones were arranged around the frames of dresser mirrors.

“This is our home! Sorry it’s such a mess,” Kristen apologised.

It really is a home. The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera share the Royal Opera House stage and premises. So their dressing room tables are their sanctuaries in performance and rehearsal periods. In Melbourne, we reside in The Primrose Potter Australian Ballet Centre for rehearsal periods, and then just across the road at the Victorian Arts Centre when performing, so the only time we can really call our theatre dressing tables a home is during our long bi-annual season in the Sydney Opera House. It would take me a while to get used to hearing PA stage calls throughout every day for both The Royal Ballet’s and The Royal Opera’s rehearsals. It made the creative buzz of this building, with its abundant history of great performances, all the more palpable.

Read the next instalment of Juliet’s adventures overseas – featuring rehearsals for Wayne McGregor’s new work and performances at the Royal Opera House.