PLAY PODCASTS
Ballet dancer, Sylvie Guillem

Ballet dancer, Sylvie Guillem

After more than 3 decades at the top, Sylvie Guillem is retiring from ballet.

The Interview · BBC World Service

December 30, 201523m 23s

Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (open.live.bbc.co.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.

Show Notes

For more than three decades the ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem has performed as principal dancer at most leading ballet establishments, redrawing the boundaries of the genre. But at the end of this year she will be giving her last performance in a worldwide farewell tour. She will undoubtedly go down in ballet history as one of the greatest dancers of all time - but she is famously been dubbed 'Mademoiselle Non' for being too assertive. Zeinab Badawi speaks to her about that as well as the poisonous rivalries in the world of ballet and her activism to save the planet.

(Photo: Prima ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem of France delivers a speech at a press conference in Tokyo. Credit: TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images)