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Marianela Núñez is talking about football. This is before the World Cup final, after England’s game with Argentina. “That was a hard position for me!” she says. Núñez moved to England from Buenos Aires aged 15 and has danced with the Royal Ballet for 28 years. She’s a British citizen, but her loyalties are clear: check out her Argentina-inspired leotard on Instagram or her cat named after Lionel Messi.
In Argentina, they call her the Messi of ballet – although when it comes to who has the finest footwork, they should really be calling him the Núñez of football. A principal dancer since the age of 20, Núñez has been at the top of her game for so long you can forget what a remarkable dancer she is. When she faces the ballerina’s equivalent of a penalty kick – Swan Lake’s 32 fouettés, Sleeping Beauty’s Rose Adagio – you never doubt her, but it’s her romantic spirit, the bright beaming energy, her vivacity in Don Quixote, the tragic yearning of her Odette, the way she breathes in ballet like oxygen, that make her special. She is deeply besotted with what she does.
On this, she feels an affinity with her footballing counterpart. When she hears interviewers tell Messi how great he is: “He says, ‘The thing is, I’m just happy kicking the ball.’ I can totally relate. Just give me my [ballet] shoes and I’m in love.” Núñez decided at five that she wanted to take ballet seriously, and by 14 was dancing leading roles at Buenos Aires’ Teatro Colón. But after such a rocketing start, she didn’t race to advance her career in the way some top principals do, with a frantic schedule of international guest appearances and solo productions. Only now, at 44, is she about to perform her own show, Timeless.
The reason it hasn’t happened sooner, she says, is because she doesn’t have an agent. Many top dancers now do have agents, as well as personal PRs to promote their brands and side projects. Núñez doesn’t go in for that – the great Sylvie Guillem never had an agent, she tells me, so that’s good enough for her. So perhaps it has taken longer, but now she has five days at the Royal Opera House, with the orchestra and her pick of repertoire. “So actually it was the perfect way,” she says. “I’m glad that I had to wait this long.” It’s not the first time I’ve heard Núñez spin something others could see as a downside into a positive, a sign of resilience that must contribute to keeping herself at the top of a tough profession for so long.
Núñez is known for her sunny temperament. The morning we speak she’s under the weather, she started feeling feverish doing yoga last night (she swears by yoga at the start and end of each day), but here she is first thing, laughing and smiling. A consummate ballerina, all the effort is hidden. When it comes to ballet though, for her, it’s not effort, it’s what gives her life, especially doing daily class.
“Class, for me, is everything,” she says. “Ballet class is where I can really feel the body, every little …” she gestures the tiniest atom. “It has that ritual feeling. You have your same spot at the barre that you had when you first joined the company.” She calls it a safety net, and a kind of meditation. What’s it like to have such an intense, lifelong love affair with something? “It’s so strong, and it feels so good,” she says. Even when it’s not good, it’s good. “You know, today I don’t feel great, and I know I’m not going to have a great rehearsal, but just being here, I’m sure something will come out of that,” she says. “Ballet doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.”
Age has brought Núñez self-acceptance. She used to chastise herself for feeling nervous. Now, it’s: “OK, you’ve done the work. Be nervous.” Accept it and get on with the job. “With all the insecurities too: now I’m like, well, yeah, you feel insecure. What are you gonna do?” What does she feel insecure about? “No, I’m not going to bore you with this,” she says, closing that door.
For Timeless, Núñez chose the programme based on who she wanted to dance with – Vadim Muntagirov, Matthew Ball, William Bracewell and the Royal Ballet’s new principal Patricio Revé – partners who have “given me confidence, ways of going out of my comfort zone so I could take risks, have freedom on stage, be vulnerable,” she says. “And with these four guys I would just laugh the whole way though rehearsal. Each of them, maybe without knowing, helped me a lot through really hard times.”
Some of the programme remains a surprise, but she will be dancing Jerome Robbins’ magical In the Night, set to Chopin nocturnes (“It’s so simple yet has so much depth. It’s very classy”), and Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, the drama of an ageing courtesan and her young lover, created for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. Some retiring dancers choose it as their farewell piece, but Núñez is nowhere near saying farewell. “There’s no expiry date!” she says. Unlike the rumours of retirement swirling round a certain footballer, Núñez looks as strong and as winning as ever.
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Marianela: Timeless is at Royal Ballet and Opera, London, 29 July to 2 August.
