Fiona Lummis Eddy finds joy in teaching

Camberley, England — roughly 30 miles southwest of London — is known for two things: the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Elmhurst Ballet School. A famous alumnus of the former includes James Bond series author, Ian Fleming. But it is the ballet school that produced Glorya Kaufman School of Dance’s artist-in-residence, Fiona Lummis Eddy.

Born and raised in Camberley, Lummis — following in her older sister’s footsteps — began ballet at age three. After decades as a student and company dancer, Lummis now shares her experience, repertoire and passion with students in Los Angeles. She credits much of her success to the ballet boarding school that just happened to be in the same military town as her family.

“It [the school’s dance genres were] a broad mix and the teachers choreographed on us,” Lummis said. “[Which] certainly kept my imagination alive.” 

Studying ballet, tap, flamenco and American jazz, to name a few, Lummis stayed at school learning, rehearsing and performing from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. The school’s emphasis on performance bled into all of its activities even at the school’s chapel, wgere Lummis said was even more associated with theater and performance than religion.

“[At high church,] we wore ballet shoes and veils, and we carried the incense,” Lummis said. “I thought it was wonderful.”

At 18, she was accepted into the Netherlands Dance Theatre’s secondary company, NDT 2. Its mission was to build up young dancers’ repertoire to feed them into their main company, NDT, a jump Lummis made in just two years. Featuring ballets by famous choreographers such as Jiri Kylian and William Forsythe, NDT focuses on contemporary dance. 

Kylian — NDT’s artistic director for 24 years — was Lummis’ favorite choreographer to work with, and she performed from 1981 to 2001 in more than 40 of his ballets. “There’s something about his work that really challenges you in every part of your brain, your body, your esthetic, and your involvement,” Lummis said. 

Kylian grew up in Czechoslovakia before the Communist Party fell. As a child, he was active in the vibrant theatre and dance scene, which is evident in his later work.

“It’s a lot of intellect that goes into what is done,” said Lummis’ former dance partner, Jean Emile. “He wanted to open up his oeuvre on us. We were going to help him grow, and in turn, he was going to help us.”

As NDT is based in The Hague, Lummis and Emile performed Kylian’s black-and-white ballets for diplomats and embassies. They even attended the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and performed as part of a cultural exchange that took place before the opening ceremonies.

“I remember seeing [Lummis] and thinking, ‘My God, what a beast.’ It was like watching Bette Davis,” Emile said. “I was always jealous when I saw her dance with somebody else … because I knew how she’s going to make them feel.”

In her 20 years at the company, Lummis rarely missed a show, something she credits to her training. Her husband, Glen Eddy, who Lummis met when dancing together at NDT, said her seemingly miraculous lack of injury comes from the way she takes care of herself.

“She just had a way of working within herself that was protected. But she gave so much too,” Eddy said. 

Lummis faced two injury-scares in her career. The first was a fall in The Hague, Netherlands from a scaffolded stage set on “Queens of Golub,” a ballet by the Israeli choreographer, Ohad Naharin. The set was about three stories high, and Lummis fell from the third to the second level. This potentially career-ending fall was broken by a ballet bar, and she came out uninjured.

The second scare occurred during a 1996 performance of Kylian’s “Sechs Tanze” in São Paulo, Brazil, where she was set down on the ground in a way that twisted her ankle and broke a bone. Lummis said she heard her foot crack, but adrenaline got her through the rest of the performance. After the show, she was taken to a hospital and sent to England for surgery, where she only underwent local anesthetic, so she could understand what doctors were doing to her foot. She spent six weeks healing.

By the end of her career, Lummis won two prestigious European dance awards. She received the Golden Theater prize in 1992 for her performance in Forsythe’s “Steptext.” She also won The Oeuvre prize in 2000 to recognize her long career in the Netherlands. She was pregnant with her first son at the time.

At 37, Lummis had her first child, Jack. She did one more year at NDT after his birth, but the long and hectic touring hours made it difficult to balance her priorities. Lummis retired and moved to South Pasadena, Calif., to live closer to her husband’s mother, Edith. Eddy then got a job at his alma mater, California Institute of the Arts. At 41, Fiona had her second son, Gus, at home. 

Lummis said these years marked the hardest period of her life. Her career changed from dancer to mother, and she found herself across the world without her community and network. 

That all changed in 2009, as a teacher at the Loa Angeles County High School of the Arts and later at Kaufman as an artist-in-residence.

At LACHSA, she teaches ballet and Kylian’s repertoire to help students prepare for dance conservatory auditions. One of her former students, Sophia Oddi, who majored in dance with a concentration in choreography, went on to train at USC Kaufman after working with Lummis.

“I don’t think I really understood how special it was to be able to have her teaching [Kylian’s] work,” Oddi said. “The language she uses and the attention to detail, and just seeing her do the repertoire and then trying to emulate it was special.”

Lummis now teaches classes and gives ballet lectures at Kaufman and was recently promoted to interim co-chair of the dance department at LACHSA.  

“She’s one of the funniest people when you really get to know her. She can make light of many situations and has this little sass to her,” Oddi said. “It translates into how she teaches her students.” 

Now 58, Lummis plans to continue teaching for the foreseeable future.

“I get complete joy from people and from this career and profession,” she said. “It’s really fed me.”