Leap into the unknown

`I'm afraid there'll be fewer Irish dancers this season." Anne Maher of Ballet Ireland was pulling no punches. Although she and her husband, artistic director Gunther Falusy, were delighted to have the support of the Arts Council in the form of a £10,000 capital grant and £25,000 for current expenses, it was clearly insufficient to fund the company for a whole year.

"Until we can offer dancers a year's contract," she continues, "we can't complain when they take work elsewhere. Indeed, we're happy for them that Aoife McGrath and Gavin de Paor now have full-time contracts with the Flensburg Ballet in Germany and that Claire Rooney and Judith Sibley are with Phantom of the Opera in Antwerp. But it is heartbreaking for us to keep losing Irish dancers of talent to other companies."

"Of course, I didn't want a company of Irish dancers only," Gunther Falusy pointed out, for ballet companies from all over the world tend to be composed of assorted nationalities. All the same, knowing that there was an ever-increasing number of talented young dancers of both sexes, often assisted by Arts Council bursaries, graduating from schools and colleges and then forced to emigrate to find work, he had hoped to provide a home for them.

Now this hoped-for future is in jeopardy because the company can only offer seasonal work. This is a pity, since they have already gained a foothold on the international map, with a three-week UK tour confirmed for May 2000. If sufficient funding could be acquired, Falusy's plan would be to have a small, permanent company of seven or eight people, augmented by guest artists. His plan sounds perfectly feasible, so it is hoped that increased funding will become available. Certainly £25,000 is a pathetically small sum for a ballet company, which is far more expensive to run than a contemporary dance company, most of which are getting considerably more substantial funding. Consequently, Ballet Ireland can only think in terms of seasons and getting the maximum value from each. For its October/ November season, for instance, it is playing 23 different venues in Ireland, North and South (including Cork, Belfast and Dublin), plus four dates in England and Scotland.

This is a punishing schedule, leaving little time off for the dancers between performing and travelling, especially since they will also be conducting a series of workshops in schools and arts centres around the country. They will be looking forward to remaining at the Civic Theatre, Tallaght, for three days in November, for even their two Dublin dates are separated by three elsewhere, due to the difficulty of obtaining bookings in the National Concert Hall.

This again highlights the lack of an opera house in Dublin, accentuated by the fact that the Gaiety, where Ballet Ireland performed last year, did not express an interest in hosting them, despite the fact that Ballet Ireland attracted 3,000 people there in one week. Because of the need to economise - through reduced cast numbers and by using costumes and settings made for a company previously run by the couple, the Wiener Ballett Theatre - Ballet Ireland's first season consisted predominantly of highlights from the classics. As previous divertissements programmes in Ireland have been given by companies like the Bolshoi or Kirov to show off their incomparable stars, the very young dancers suffered by comparison and drew some adverse criticism.

Nor was the company helped by an article in Dance Europe, outlining how the dancers of Wiener Ballett Theatre were not paid for their last eight performances. Falusy, however, was not paid for the final three months and was only responsible for artistic direction, financial matters being controlled by another party. The article's author, Stephen Brennan, acknowledges this and, like other dancers from that tour, joined Ballet Ireland for its two previous seasons. Happily, the second of these proved the company's worth, attracting both critical praise and an audience of 1,600 people on one day to two performances in the National Concert Hall last March.

Undoubtedly audiences are again building for ballet, as people get a chance to see it in venues countrywide and in theatres where they can fully appreciate the artistry and skill involved. As Stanley Illsley and Leo McCabe proved at the Olympia in the 1950s, the more ballet is seen, the greater the crowds that flock to it, though in those days there were few Irish dancers to be seen, and the companies came mainly from France, Belgium, the US and the UK

Ballet Ireland opens its Tchaikovsky Gala Tour in New Ross on October 1st, before moving to the Cork Opera House the following day