There is no one quite like Maina Gielgud. She is a dancer, coach, artistic director and lover of all things artistic. Her depth of experience and appreciation of the art form make her a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge. She shares what she believes to be the most important qualities a dancer requires to be successful.



What do you feel is important when auditioning for either a school or a company?

Being intelligent about it. Making yourself visible, without ‘showing off’. Not easy if in a cattle call type of audition.

Good to ‘rehearse’ by using daily classes imagining they are audition classes. 

Good to have experience of doing different types of classically based classes by different teachers from different ‘schools’ - eg, Vaganova, Danish, Balanchine SAB/NYCB, French and so called ‘English’..

Being aware that the perception of you that the director/choreographer/coach/teacher will have, those who has not laid eyes on you before, is extremely important. 

The auditionee who is talented, physically suited to classical ballet, and quick to learn enchainements - including the entire body, arms, possible head inclination, epaulements etc will catch the eye.

Making yourself visible, not only means where and when and how you place yourself for each exercise, but also how you behave between exercises. 

Do you listen to all corrections, not only those addressed to you?

After finishing an exercise, do you visibly think about what you could do better - whether by practicing something that did not go to your satisfaction (if there is enough room), by indicating for yourself a correction of misplacement, of port de bras - of musicality (it can be seen if you are marking musical accents for yourself, even just slightly nodding your head as listening for instance).

The dancers who somehow manage to miss out on doing their less good side of an exercise, or do it less frequently than the better one (because they do not feel at their best on that side), will immediately be noticed. For the wrong reasons.

While those who persevere, and redouble their efforts, with intelligence, will be noticed, and earmarked as dancers who don’t simply want to show their best side, but realize that every class is an opportunity to improve BOTH their qualities and their challenges…

Dancers often do not realize that the thought process involved in their class work is visible to those who make artistic decisions, more than the actual achievements on that day, given an obvious quality there.

What are the qualities that you personally think make a good dancer/performer/artist?

Given an elementary physical capacity (not usually an IDEAL physique as those blessed with such, rarely learn how to overcome obstacles). Meaning acceptable physique and some instinctive coordination.

1 Love of - and NEED - to dance

2 Determination and ambition

3 Personality

4 Quality of movement

5 Intelligence

6 Musicality

7 Acting ability and stagecraft

8 Staying power 

9 Generosity

10 Courage

 Maina shares a wonderful story of perspective during  her time with Maurice Bejart.

During my first year with Maurice Bejart’s Ballet du XXeme Siecle, one of the roles I learned was that of Queen Mab in his Romeo and Juliet. This involved an extremely difficult 20 minute solo, which involved some criss crossing with Paolo Bortoluzzi, who was dancing the role of Mercutio. My headdress was a skull cap, with on top a plastic sort of bubble with flame-like object inside..  Somewhat like a mega sized light bulb.

At the premiere, nervous and excited, but not having rehearsed the run with Paolo, I misjudged, and ran headfirst straight into him - falling backwards onto my bottom, with the plastic bubble shattering!  Maurice Bejart thought it was very funny.

I often fell on first nights, and was not in floods of tears with embarrassment as I often find dancers are when this sort of situation occurs. it had been explained to me early on that a ballet dancer falling is not a tragedy, and in fact audiences rather like it, as they like risk takers, and like being reminded that dancers are also human beings! Certainly that is the way I viewed this if an onlooker.

However missing a pirouette or a balance or feeling that I was giving a bad performance, THAT did seem tragic, and only redeemable by doubling on efforts to make the next one much better….

Maina Gielgud, 2022