Before she reaches her third decade, Bangkok-born Natnaree "Ommi" Pipit-Suksun is beginning to stretch the boundaries in American ballet. As a dancer with the London Royal Ballet School, a Soloist Dancer in the San Francisco Ballet and now a Principal Dancer with the San Jose Ballet Company, she is one of only two "non-Caucasian women" in America to reach this height. (The other, African-American Missy Copeland, gave credit to Ommi on the nationally-broadcast Charlie Rose Show last month.) She has already danced on three continents in lead performances. The Huffington Post listed her as one of American's "39 most exciting dancers".
She is also the only professional international ballerina who returns to her native Thailand to teach aspiring dancers. Next Tuesday, Ommi will be the centrepiece of "Ballet Masterpieces With Young Thai Master", with the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra.
Of her many stellar records, perhaps her main achievement has been to shatter the false image given in movies like The Black Swan and Red Shoes — that ballet is torturous, arduous and a pleasure only for masochists. In fact, though she has suffered her share of injuries, both physical and mental, Ommi is absolutely ebullient when it comes to her art and her life.
It started with her return email to a writer initially requesting an interview. No simple affirmation, but an unorthodox "how lovely to hear from you. I'm very excited about the upcoming (Bangkok) performance".
Just as she has been excited from her very unusual beginning at the age of seven. Coming from a middle-class business family in Bangkok's suburbs, her first lessons were offered — because her mother was short!
"She is barely five feet tall," laughs Ommi, "and she thought that if I exercised in a ballet school, that might help my own height. Well, I don't know about that. But I know that every morning I couldn't wait to go to the Varaporn and Kanchana Ballet School".
"I didn't even realise it was a school. All I know was that we ran around, we danced, we used our bodies, we enjoyed it so much. And then my teacher began to think that I had potential, that I might even go abroad.
"Well, the main challenge was telling my family, which has traditional Thai and Chinese attitudes. My mother was very encouraging. My father took longer to convince — he didn't realise that dancing could be a career. But at the age of 15, I went to London, to the Royal Ballet School. And that's where it all began."
A few years later, Ommi was offered a position in the San Francisco Ballet, one of America's largest and most prestigious. That was where her exuberance almost turned into tragedy.
"I was too young," she said. "Ballet can be so competitive, dancers, like all people, can be rather catty. And I didn't quite know how to deal with them, though I entered at a high position. Yes, I had a lot of solo roles, I was dancing the standard principal works. Yet people weren't initially terribly welcoming there. Or perhaps I didn't know how to deal with it."
After eight years and some arduous rehearsals, Ommi felt some pain in her knee — but couldn't speak to anyone about it. It became worse, she became infirm and decided at a certain point that mentally and physically she might have to give up.
The solution was found three years ago in a smaller, younger, more innovative ballet company in the heart of Silicon Valley. Ballet San Jose introduced her to a partner who, in San Jose terms, made them the equivalent of Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn.
Rudy Candia was a prodigy in Cuba and studied at the National Ballet School there. In San Jose he performs most of his leading role with a similar expatriate, Ommi. The two of them will perform together here in a most diverse programme.
The concert next Tuesday is all ballet. Even the orchestral interludes. Conductor Martin Andre will lead the Bangkok Symphony in works from two versions of Romeo And Juliet, by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Ravel's Pavanne For A Dead Infant has frequently been choreographed, and Chopin's Les Sylphides is one of the staples of any classical ballet group.
But audiences will obviously be coming to see their own dancer and Ommi will join Candia in four works especially chosen for her talents.
"Each piece has its own side for me. The White Swan Pas De Deux by Tchaikovsky is sad and tragic. The Delibes Pas De Deux from Sylvia is a happy piece. Massenet's Meditation from Thaïs is, yes, meditative.
"But I suppose the most challenging for me is from Bizet's Carmen Suite. Maybe because it's so unlike me."
True enough, the character of Carmen has a Gypsy-style emotion, a fire, a rapacity, which seems a bit out of place for a nice girl from a good Bangkok family. But in San Jose, Ommi managed the work with the ballet company and got special raves from the local reviewer: "She demonstrated her technical mastery... and her dance was executed with sensuality. She swayed her hips and used her eyes and seductive smile to flirt with him."
While this is not Ommi's real character — an exciting free evening for her is playing the piano in her studio apartment or reading — the challenge is worth the effort.
"You ask how I balance the character and the dancing and myself? When I was younger, I was always nervous, I was unsure how to let go.
"Now, though, I feel that I have the balance of technical work and how to let go and really act," she said.
"Of course I studied Thai classical dance in school and while that and ballet are different, they have points of commonality. Portraying roles in ballet, I can still use my hand and wrist gestures, and of course the eyes, which come from Thai dance. Technically, both involve the use of plié, the use of the feet when transferring weight.
"And of course in both, the character we play must be foremost in our minds.
"Which, when I dance Cinderella, isn't difficult at all. That comes naturally to me."
Not that Ommi ever had to transform herself with a fairy godmother. From the start, ballet was a game, the profession a challenge and her stardom — both as a teacher in America and Thailand, and on the stage — is simply accepted.
"I dance," she said, "because it's my passion. Dance enables me to find different facets of my inner self. Yet at the same time, I can lose myself. Dance gives me the feeling of self-fulfilment.
"And I still find it as exciting as when I was seven years old."
- "Ballet Masterpieces With Young Thai Master" is on Tuesday at 8pm at Thailand Cultural Centre. Tickets from 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 and 2,500 baht are now available at all ThaiTicketmajor outlets or www.thaiticketmajor.com.
- For further information, please visit www.bangkoksymphony.org or contact the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Foundation on 02-255-6617/8, 02-254-4954.
