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English ballerina Sarah Wildor is looking rather fresh for someone just off 24 hours of traveling. She arrived from London, with a contingent of fellow Royal Ballet members, late Friday, the night before an interview and only a few days before their six-day engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.
After a reunion with her boyfriend--ex-Royal dancer Adam Cooper, who drove from L.A. after dancing the Swan in Matthew Bourne's hit "Swan Lake"--she slept a little and then searched the long blocks around the center in vain for a non-fast-food breakfast, settling for a takeout muffin. And now she is facing a disappointed photographer, who expected her to turn up in a tutu and, presumably, twirl a bit for the camera.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't got a costume with me," she says pleasantly, fixing him with a bright gaze that seems penetrating and sympathetic at the same time. "Will it be all right with just me?"
It seems to be, and photography proceeds. Later, seated with life-sustaining coffee in the offices of the center, she admits with a laugh, "What I'd like to have said to him is 'What? You must be joking. I can't think of anything worse!' "
Offstage is off-the-clock for Wildor, 25, a first-soloist whose success in principal roles has made her a key member of the Royal's "rising star" contingent. But even though her style is casual--she wears little makeup, a plain brown shirt and slacks, and has what she calls a silly British sense of humor--she can't escape a few glamorous-ballerina stereotypes.
For one thing, she looks and sounds gently aristocratic, with...