Claire Bayliss Nagar has a precious stash of Marmite and Typhoo tea bags in her kitchen in Tel Aviv. These quintessentially British items serve to remind her that, even after living in Israel for many years, her heart belongs to the UK. As artistic director of The Israel Ballet — the country’s foremost classical ballet company — she has a wealth of experience, both as a dancer and teacher, and is among a growing number of women who are at the helm of major dance companies around the world.
Her story began back in Birmingham where, like so many other little girls, she attended local ballet classes, following her two older sisters. It was obvious that she was born to dance. “When I could walk, I started dancing. My mother bought me a pair of little red leather ballet shoes so I could dance at home,” says Bayliss Nagar, speaking from Tel Aviv.
Her mother was a keen amateur dancer and her father enjoyed ballet, but Bayliss Nagar was not allowed to start classes until she was seven.

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The Israel Ballet in Sleeping Beauty

“My mother thought I wouldn’t listen to a ballet teacher. She said, ‘As long as you do what the teacher says, if she says stand at the barre, you stand at the barre.’ So I was very studious and good, and did what the teacher told me. I fulfilled my mother’s dream.”
She successfully auditioned for White Lodge, the junior section of the Royal Ballet School, and left home to board there. “I loved White Lodge, I was there from 1974 to 1981. To be in beautiful Richmond Park and looking out of the windows at the dawn and seeing the deer, what’s not to love? It was very special, it was life-changing for me.”
As a student she had the opportunity to dance in productions at Covent Garden, including a memorable season in The Nutcracker, when Rudolf Nureyev played the role of Drosselmeyer. “He was rehearsing us and screaming at us. We were rats and children, and the rats had to jump onto the stage through the holes in the scenery on the chimes of the clock. Oy! If any of us jumped at the wrong time, he went berserk.”
She peppers her recollections with the names of fellow pupils who went on to have starry careers, such as Darcey Bussell and Alessandra Ferri. Kevin O’Hare, the current director of the Royal Ballet, was in the year below hers. On graduation, Bayliss Nagar was devastated not to be offered a contract with either the Royal Ballet or its sister company, the (then) Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet. She had no option but to audition for other companies, and so began a life on the road where she danced in London, Portugal, Italy and Monte Carlo.
It was while she was in Monte Carlo that she met her Israeli husband, Yaniv. When he returned to Israel to take up a job with the Batsheva Dance Company, she followed.

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The Israel Ballet (Photo: Iris Tashlitsky)

“I moved to Israel and got a job with the Israel Ballet. Then I hung up my pointe shoes. I was 39 by then and it was mentally enough for me. I felt a very strong calling to teach, and the Batsheva Dance Company called me up and said, ‘We’d like you to be ballet mistress at Batsheva.’”
She initially scoffed at the idea, as she knew little about contemporary dance, but she accepted the offer and stayed for 13 years, eventually becoming manager of its junior company. When she returned to the Israel Ballet, it was as company manager and then artistic director, a post she has held for four years. It is a job she adores. “I am passionate about it to a fault. I sometimes wonder if I don’t take it home with me too much. Dance is part of me, that’s who I am. I’m a wife and a mother too; I have two gorgeous children.” (Her daughter Zoe is also a dancer.)
“Since I took over, there have been a few challenging moments. We had a fire in the building and then a couple of months later we had a flood and now we’ve had a pandemic, so I think I’m done with dramas. I’m feeling very optimistic, I’m looking onwards and upwards.”
Keeping things running during the pandemic was particularly difficult. “Every company had a hard time. I don’t think we had a harder time necessarily than anybody else, but I think perhaps the smaller companies in the world did find it harder because you don’t have extra funding. We had the money that the government gave us — compensation — but other companies have private donors who stepped up and helped. We don’t have a huge amount of them; we do have donors but a lot of people who want to give to dance give to the contemporary scene; they don’t all necessarily give to classical ballet.
“It was also very challenging, with all the social distancing, vaccinations, and masks. Then the frustrating thing was only performing to half capacity because we are not Covent Garden, most of the theatres here are only 600, 700, 800 [seats] if you are lucky. The smaller halls are only 500, so if you are only performing to half capacity, it didn’t make it viable for us to do a performance. We didn’t perform for a long time. We were here, we were doing class and rehearsing, but we couldn’t get out on stage, because it was just not viable.”

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The Israel Ballet in Giselle

Thankfully, the company is now back to performing to full houses. Last month saw the premiere of a new ballet based on The Lady of the Camellias, called Violetta, and The Nutcracker is scheduled for their Chanukah season: with one important change. “We don’t have a Christmas tree as there are people in Israel who would take offence. You don’t want to upset your audience and take any risk that people would not come and see it because of that. It is just like a party, a winter gathering. There is still snow and the Nutcracker and all the characters, but there is no growing Christmas tree.”
The company is greatly influenced by the Russian style, with two of its ballet masters coming from Russia, but there is some British technique too.
“We are a small company in a small country, and we do not have gigantic budgets. We have 30 dancers and six are apprentices only. For a ballet company that is small. In the past, half the company was British and after I left [as a dancer] there were a lot of Russians. It is more of a mixed style now, because of me. I like to mix it up. Our dancers need to be really flexible and versatile.”
Israel is already known internationally as a powerhouse of contemporary dance: Hofesh Shechter, Ohad Naharin and Jasmin Vardimon are just three acclaimed dancer/choreographers who started out on the Israeli stage. But it is gaining a good reputation for classical ballet too. That world-famous dancers such as Natalia Osipova, Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov have made guest appearances with the Israel Ballet speaks for itself.
Bayliss Nagar sees an increased interest in classical ballet among Israelis. “There are a lot of audience members who come from Russia and who come from other European countries. Israel is basically a melting pot and Jews come from all over the world, and therefore you have all kinds of cultures. The contemporary and modern dance here is fantastic but there is also an appetite for classical ballet.
“The dance scene here is huge. In most secondary schools there is a dance department. The government invests a lot of money, time and effort and they do exams in dance. More and more secondary schools are opening a dance department because the demand for dance is just enormous in Israel.”

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Nutcracker - the Israel Ballet

She acknowledges that life in Israel is not always easy. “We go through terror attacks and wars. It is a very challenging place to live and sometimes I think to myself, why on earth did I decide to live here, but you can say that about anywhere now, can’t you? The first time there was a war, coming from the UK I’d never experienced anything like that — running to a bomb shelter and listening to the shells drop. It’s absolutely terrifying. Of course, you always hope that there will never be another war but that’s not very realistic, is it? On the other hand, this is my home, and this is where I live and where I work and you just get on with it. But I’m still British in my heart…isn’t it silly, 25 years later, I’m still drinking British tea.”

Details of The Israel Ballet performances from iballet.co.il