So what have you been doing professionally since you left Sweden?
I came back to a revival of Don Quixoteso it wasn´t a stressful premiere. Everybody knew me and I felt comfortable. Next came the triple bill, Benjamin Millepied´s One Thing leads to Another that was another premiere for me and after that followed The Sleeping Beauty. That was the first time I had danced the full ballet and then Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux — one more premiere — and my first Balanchine. Now we are preparing the Hans van Manen programme and then I will be working for Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui on his new creation, which is a world premiere.

Is this is your first time working with him?
Yes. I haven´t met him yet but I´ve seen excerpts of his work and I like it that he has such extremes. It should be interesting and I am looking forward to it.

David Dawson´s new ballet is also on the bill — are you cast in that?
No, I did learn his Grey Area but never performed it. I was looking forward to working with David but that is the way it happens. I like his choreography; it reached the maximum then you feel like you go over yourself and that, for the dancer, is the greatest feeling — when you kind of surprise yourself.

Tell me a little about working in the Balanchine style. You worked with Pat Neary?
Yes, I was a little bit nervous in the beginning because I hadn´t danced any Balanchine. I mentioned after a few rehearsals, ‘Oh, it´s the first time for
me´, and Pat was very surprised. She hadn´t realised as I was hiding it so well.

The style is different mainly in the preparation, in the attack and the speed of the movement. Also the choreography has almost no plié. I have only danced the Tchaikovsky Pas but it was a surprise for my body that it´s possible to dance so quick with no plié and no preparations just the attack of the movement. And the spotting front all the time! By the end I couldn´t spot the normal way anymore I was enjoying so much doing it that way! I had a lot of fun.

It´s a wonderful pas de deux to dance. Very puffy stamina wise and very, very challenging but I was dancing with Cédric and we had such a wonderful time on stage.

And with Benjamin Millepied — you were part of the creation process. Tell me about that?
He was creating on the spot basically so it was very step by step. It needed a lot of patience but the result was great. His work is very abstract but what I liked was that there was complete freedom in the feelings so we adapted the steps to what we felt at that moment. With Cédric when we went on stage we were at that moment; at that second; at that mood. We had complete freedom in the emotional range. The music basically had no melody ... but it was interesting to just float within it. Our pas de deux felt like a meditation, quite long, slow, wrapping around and a bit dreamy.

And Hans van Manen?
We just started so I haven´t worked with him yet.  I am starting to learn Hammerklavier and I think it is a great start because it´s very slow, very basic but within Hans van Manen´s style. Rachel (Beaujean) gives a lot of exact information: how to look, how to place the head, to keep the body forward, and I have time to absorb everything.

Rachel mentioned right away that there has to be a special atmosphere between the three principal couples on stage. It has to set this particular mood while feeling each other and being exactly step by step together.

And Ratmansky? He´s Russian and works with the classical technique so, no big change?
Yes, but his choreographic style was still different. It was very quick with a lot of steps. I did Olga in On the Dnieper. It was interesting to realise that in such a quick tempo and with so many steps you were still able to tell the story. I enjoyed it because I like dramatic ballets, melodrama, drama, everything that has a story, I enjoy!