Dowell Makes His Mark on the Royal

A decade ago, the consensus on the Royal Ballet was that it was in the doldrums. Artistic standards for the premier British company had dropped, and the company was beset with financial and management problems.

But thanks to an influx of imported dancers, it’s a different Royal that is touring the United States these days. The company’s engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa through Sunday is part of the Royal’s first U.S. tour in eight years.

Masterminding the change was Anthony Dowell, who took over the Royal in 1986 after more than three decades of setting the standards for male dancers as a member of that company.

“Every company goes through ups and downs,” Dowell said in a recent phone interview. “It’s not possible to keep it at a peak all the time. You’re dealing with human beings.”

Dowell, 48, says he’s redone the company by nurturing younger dancers and inviting into the company such international artists as Sylvie Guillem, formerly with the Paris Opera Ballet, and Irek Mukhamedov, formerly of the Bolshoi Ballet.

He said that bringing in the guests “did cause unrest” in the company because “when another star appears on the horizon, all artists can tend to feel threatened.”

“It doesn’t make me that popular in certain circles, but as director, I can’t please everyone all the time,” he said. “The other dancers need to learn to use it in a positive way.”

Of the younger dancers, Dowell said he feels he is “blessed with a good crop of talent that’s now just starting to blossom.”

Not all of the last five years has been rosy for the director, however, as he is quite willing to admit. Several times he called his position “this impossible job.”

For one thing, Dowell has been accused of being a remote and reticent director. “Dancers are probably the ones who say that,” he said. “Certainly, there I am wearing the director’s hat. That can’t help but change you in their eyes. You’ve become the director and are controlling their lives.”

He also has been accused of mounting repertory that still permits him to continue dancing.

For instance, in Orange County he is dancing Kulygin in “Winter Dreams,” a role choreographer Kenneth MacMillan created for him. “I asked him if he were sure there was no one else to dance it,” Dowell said of MacMillan. “He told me, ‘Anthony, there is no one else I want to do it.’ It was pleasant (the ballet) was so well received. Maybe it broke through that barrier.”

Nevertheless, he has passed on to other dancers many roles he made famous.

Perhaps worst of all, however, is the charge that Dowell has diluted the English style of ballet by bringing in guest dancers trained in other traditions and by shifting the training of the company more toward Russian-style bravura.

“I don’t think that in fact there has been a major change because that’s where our basic language comes from,” he said. “That’s how I was taught. We all use the same vocabulary.”

Besides, he added, “I believe the way people dance is strongly influenced by their own nationality.”

“But another strong influence, if a company is fortunate, is having a strong (choreographic) creative force,” he said. “Dancers are molded by how the creative force wants them to look.”

Even there, however, Dowell has been attacked for favoring a select few choreographers, among them 34-year-old David Bintley, resident choreographer at the Royal. Dowell said it is a matter of husbanding resources.

“There never was a glut of choreographers with any great creative force or talent; that’s what makes them special,” he said. “They’re rare breeds. What is hard now is that most of the major choreographers are with their own companies. They’re loath to take the plunge, to come into the midst of a new company and create for them.”

The Royal Ballet of Great Britain will dance”Swan Lake” and other works through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets: $20 to $65. Information: (714) 556-2787