The Ballet Ruse

Muirne Bloomer: Emma and I have been colleagues for over ten years, mainly with CoisCeim Dance Theatre. Both of us had our formative training and early careers in classical ballet. I was a member of Dublin City Ballet and Vienna Ballet Theatre. Emma trained in Russia and danced with the Nizhny Novgorod State Theatre.

We have every respect for dancers working in the ballet genre. It’s hard. The piece is not a parody of ballet: however, some of our stories lend themselves very well to comedy and we do show the darker aspects of our experiences.

Emma O'Kane: In creating the work the focus was to look inward to recall our own stories rather than tackling or commenting on the ballet world as it stands now. Dancers who have seen the show have thanked us for showing the true, gritty side of this beautiful art form. From this response I’m guessing some things haven’t changed. They remain the same as they were for Muirne and I when we were immersed in that world.

The Ballet Ruse is a ballet about the lives of two dancers who struggled with their imperfections in an unforgiving world: the price you pay for perfection is very high. Our choreographic process started by looking at the repertoire that we had danced in our ballet careers and also the roles that we always wanted to dance but never did because we were either ‘too fat’ or ’too tall’.

We wanted to show the other side of Ballet, the side that rarely gets seen by the public.

Bloomer: It’s an autobiographical duet about our lives as ballet dancers. We started training in ballet again to make the piece. We wanted to get in touch with the girls we were all those years ago and see how much of them still resonate within us today.

Ballet in the piece is a metaphor for any person’s ambition and the strife to achieve perfection. It looks at how far we were willing to go to realise our own hopes and dreams.

O'Kane: It’s a metaphor for dreams, destiny, the constant emphasis there is on obtaining ‘the body beautiful’, the inner conflict we all experience in our daily lives and proof that with a good sense of humour and hard work anything is possible. For instance, I can’t believe I’m back en pointe after all these years!

Bloomer: We made The Ballet Ruse to entertain and share our stories with people from all walks of life. It’s not necessary to know anything about ballet to enjoy or understand it. It has been well received by audiences from 8 to 80!

O'Kane: We wanted to make it for everyman and not to be exclusive. The work has proven accessible to all. Muirne and I share the same sense of humour and made a pact before making the duet that if we were to be in a studio for 8 hours a day together that we were going to have a laugh.