WORDS Kayla Walsh
ILLUSTRATIONS Alice Wilson
Stephen Brennan’s story is strikingly reminiscent of Billy Elliot. Ever since he was a child, he dreamt of being a ballet dancer. But growing up in a single-parent family in the 80s and attending an all-boys grammar school in Liverpool, he was never going to have it easy. “There were six hundred students in my school, and five hundred and ninety-nine of them wanted to be footballers,” Brennan confided. “I wanted to be a dancer, and they all knew. Luckily, I was quick and could get out the way at the first sign of a threat.”
Rising above the abuse from his peers, Brennan never lost sight of his goals. When his mother struggled to pay for his ballet tuition, he picked up a paper round. Through his hard work and dedication, he won numerous scholarships and a place at the Central School of Ballet in London. He went on to enjoy an extremely prestigious dancing career, performing everywhere from Switzerland to Poland.
Now, as Education Officer for Ballet Ireland, Brennan’s job is to inform the public about ballet and encourage an interest in the art form. As he put it, “People think ballet is just Russian or French fancy dancing. It’s a lot more than that. People don’t understand the physicality of it and the work that goes in. The best thing to do is to go in as young as possible so there is a generation growing up aware of what ballet is, with a clear idea of what it could be.”
According to Brennan, Ireland was exposed to a much greater range of dance performances in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Since the onset of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, however, foreign companies have been less willing to travel to the country. “We’ve had 40 years of nothing substantial coming here,” he observed. “All we’ve done is brought over the Russians for Swan Lake, over and over again. That’s all people have seen, so audiences equate ballet with that.” Brennan pointed out most Irish people wouldn’t be able to name many ballets apart from the aforementioned Swan Lake and the Nutcracker. Unless more Irish companies are prepared to take risks with what they produce, and more international companies decide to bring thir work over here on tour, we will continue to suffer from a death of variety.
“All we’ve done is brought over the Russians for Swan Lake, over and over again. That’s all people have seen, so audiences equate ballet with that.”
Though most dancers retire in their mid-thirties, Brennan appeared onstage until the age of 42. “I was an actor as well as a dancer, so later on I got roles that relied more heavily on the dramatic side of things,” he explained. This extension of his career was not without its disadvantages: “You reach your physical peak at around 27 years old. When I got into my thirties and I was still dancing, I noticed that my body recovery period wasn’t happening within twenty-four hours. The idea of the dancer plunging his or her feet into a bucket of ice after a show is overdramatised, but there is some truth in it.”
Being a ballet dancer is psychologically demanding as well as physically. Brennan likened his honing of the craft to a violinist sitting in a room for hours on end, scratching away until they get their perfect A flat minor. “A dancer does the same thing… But you can put down your violin and walk away from it. You can’t walk away from your body. You’ve got to get your mind over the fact that your body is worn out.”
For younger dancers, there is also the stress of juggling schoolwork with training. Ballet schools expect pupils to apply themselves to academic courses during the day and ballet classes in the evenings. Students at university level practise for up to eight hours a day. On top of that, there is a fierce competitiveness in the market. Brennan warned that many teachers in Ireland are reluctant to allow their students to progress to bigger and better things: “There are several good teachers in Ireland, but a lot of teachers are just holding on to their territory.”
Brennan maintained an optimistic outlook, however. He noted that, for male ballet dancers at least, conditions are improving: “People are far more accepting of others being individual than they were in the 70s and 80s. Back then, ballet would have been perceived as sissy, or for girls, but I think that has changed. It’s acknowledged these days that it’s extremely athletic. Jokes about men in tights have become old hat.”
He was also surprisingly positive when asked about the difficulties of pursuing a career in the arts during times of austerity. “People become very creative during a recession,” he commented, “You become more imaginative, and you find ways of making limited resources go further.”
He described how people flock to the arts to find relief and distraction when times are hard. “We go back to the arts during a recession. We have more quality time. When you’re not running after the second house, or the third car, or the next holiday that year… The money game is over, so what quality of life have you got?” He explained how, in London during the Second World War, a motion to close down the West End theatres was met with outrage and Churchill’s alleged exclamation, “Then what are we fighting for?”, Brennan elaborated: “That’s our culture, that’s who we are as a nation. The idea applies to Ireland as well. If you close the theatres, close the libraries, close the art galleries, who are we?”
