LIVING PORTRAITS IN DANCE
Presents"Backstage with Margot Fonteyn and the Bumptious Colonial"
Read the Daily Camera article about Backstage...
A seventy-five minute Multimedia Auto-biographical One-Woman Show
Robin Haig
"I have been a dancer, choreographer, teacher, historian, and now
solo performer.
It is time to put everything together and be all of who I am."
—Robin Haig
"In her delightful one-woman show Backstage with Margot Fonteyn and
the Bumptious Colonial, Robin Haig takes us by the wrist and leads us
gently through a ballerina’s dressing room, rehearsal halls, stages and
post-show parties. There, Haig brings her colleague, the great Margot
Fonteyn, her partner Rudolph Nuryev and other characters from Fonteyn’s
fascinating life to the audience. The often humorous piece smartly employs
still and moving images that accent both Haig and Fonteyn’s stories, and
how the ballerinas’ lives intertwined. Haig is lovely and charming, a
natural storyteller, and her performance is both entertaining and
educational. It left me with a clear impression of Fonteyn, and wanting
to learn more about the world of ballet."
— Mark Collins, Daily Camera Theater Critic
"Robin Haig, a natural storyteller with impeccable comic timing,
delivers a winning combination of anecdote and historical fact in her
one-woman show. The beauty of this bare bones production is that, with
just a few carefully chosen props, Haig creates an entire world —
an encapsulated portrait of the dancer after the curtain falls. With
the help of director Lee Potts, Haig transforms her collection of
memories from both her own career as a professional ballerina and
that of 20th century ballet legend Margot Fonteyn into a cohesive
evening length work that proves as delightful as it is informative."
—Cari Cunningham, Boulder Daily Camera Dance Critic
Backstage with Margot Fonteyn and the Bumptious Colonial is a unique performance event that embodies the behind-the-scenes story of Margot Fonteyn, the greatest British ballerina of the 20th century, and her colleague Robin Haig, whose own career was often interwoven with that of her idol. This staged memoir combines storytelling, dance, music, slides and film to explore Fonteyn's genius as a person and an artist. Her famous partnerships with Sir Frederick Ashton and Rudolf Nureyev, Haig's improvisational career path, and the life-shaping choices that artists confront, especially women artists, dramatically unfold. "I believe all the arts are necessary to educate and inspire us and to elevate our spirits," Haig comments. "When I was a young dancer, I loved to hear the older dancers tell their stories. Now, as an elder of the tribe, I’m telling mine—weaving the threads connecting us all throughout the history of the art form."