Sense of liberation Rachel finds it almost impossible to say which job or period she’s enjoyed most, although she admits, “I was extremely happy while I was making Raymonda (2022). For the first time, I had sole responsibility for the end result. Whilst that was exhausting, it gave enormous freedom as well. In fact, that sense of liberation was something I also felt when I danced ballets by Hans, and regularly when I was coaching one or two dancers. You shut the studio door and focus purely on achieving something together, and then you forget everything else.” Her imminent departure from Dutch National Ballet in no way means that she’s saying farewell to dance. “I’m staying on as director of the Hans van Manen Foundation and hope to have more time to teach his ballets all over the world. And more or less straight after my new production of La Bayadère (see page 88), I’ll be off to Bordeaux, to create a new Swan Lake, in co-production with Northern Ballet from Leeds. A comfy pensioner’s life seems very overrated to me. I’d rather keep on going – and dance until the grave.” Besides Ted Brandsen, associate artistic director Rachel Beaujean is also leaving at the end of the 2025 – 2026 season. She’ll then have been working with Dutch National Ballet for precisely fifty years. And that’s unparalleled in the dance world. “When I was young, I wanted to see the world, but apparently I’m a very loyal person.” Rachel Beaujean performed with Dutch National Ballet for the first time when she was still a young dance student: as a page in The Sleeping Beauty. “For me, that was something so grand and unattainable. I thought that all the dancers at Dutch National Ballet were kings and queens, as it were, so it was out of my reach.” Even when former artistic director Rudi van Dantzig accepted her at the age of seventeen without an audition, she could still hardly believe it. “Shortly afterwards, I went to see Swan Lake with my mother and I said to her, ‘I’d be happy just being one of those heralds (a walk-on part – ed.) and holding a trumpet’.” Things turned out differently, however, and Rachel was soon getting some great roles. She rose to become a soloist and was Hans van Manen’s muse for many years. Following a twenty-year dancing career, she became a ballet master in 1997, after which she was promoted to head of the artistic staff and then to associate artistic director in 2017. “When I was young, I wanted to see the world, but apparently I’m a very loyal person. Added to that, I was given so many opportunities here.” This has made her the longest-running follower of Dutch National Ballet’s development from the inside. “Actually, little has changed. Ted Brandsen and I still honour the ballet heritage and take it as the basis for building progressively towards the future.” ‘You’re OK as you are’ What has changed, though, is the emancipation of the dancer. Hans (van Manen – ed.) always declared that you didn’t have to live up to the stereotypical image of a ballet dancer and that you’re OK as you are. That attitude also influen- ced our repertoire and our way of thinking.” The fact that the company’s standard has risen so sharply in recent decades is, she says modestly, to the credit of many people; not least the dancers themselves. “The extent to which some of them surpass them- selves is not something you can teach. I sometimes think their talent comes straight from the gods.” Interview Rachel Beaujean on her fifty years with Dutch National Ballet “ A comfy pensioner’s life seems overrated to me” Text: Astrid van Leeuwen Ballet 86
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