Artistry of the athlete

CAMPBELL McKENZIE, the young Ozzie principal with The Scottish Ballet,

has the pretty-boy looks of an Australian soap star -- which

occasionally prompts mischievous colleagues to hum the theme tune to

Neighbours as he passes. On stage, however, with an elegant hairpiece

and regal posture, he is every inch the romantic gallant, dancing Prince

Siegfried with passionate verve.

Galina Samsova's interpretation of Swan Lake, reviving the

choreography of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, concentrates on beauty and

love, not sex and death, and the onstage evolution of McKenzie's

Siegfried is from dandified prince to a man inspired by high ideals;

contemptuous of marriage he thrills to the idea of saving the beautiful

Odette from her swan enslavement. His anguish after the Black Swan pas

de deux, when he realises he has been thwarted by the evil forces of Von

Rothbart and Odile, is heartstoppingly heart-felt.

''Well,'' muses McKenzie, ''he had wanted to perform his good deed of

the century.'' Glistening from a post-performance shower and sucking on

the ballet dancers' constant companion, a cigarette, he explains how a

boy from Melbourne ended up leaping across the boards in Glasgow. It is

not as obvious as his name suggests: ''Maybe generations ago there was a

Scottish connection but as far back as I know my family are all

Australian.''

Despite the cute looks, there is an intriguing bad boy glint in the

eyes and it is easy to imagine him as a Shark in West Side Story. What

is surprising is that at the beginning of 1994 he took time out between

dancing for Australian Ballet as a senior artist and signing up as a

principal with Scottish Ballet to tour across Australia with that

musical.

''Australian Ballet was going through a rough time, which coincided

with a personal crisis for me,'' he explains. I was having discipline

problems with the artistic director and I had done a lot there in a very

short time. By the time I was 22 I was one rank below principal and had

danced all the principal roles. I had become a little disillusioned with

ballet.''

He considers the time out to have been an invaluable experience but

now wonders that he could ever have rejected ballet as a career. Halfway

through the West Side Story tour he began firing off his resume to

companies and was offered a contract by Samsova.

He's happy to be in Scotland ''because the cold weather inspires you

to stay inside and work to keep warm'' and also because he feels that

his profession is more respected in Europe. ''Whether they think you are

effeminate doesn't matter, they appreciate the physicality, but in

Australia it's not taken seriously. I once told a taxi driver there that

I was with Australian Ballet and he said 'yeh, but what do you do during

the day?'''

But McKenzie admits to missing ''a hot Christmas and the outdoors

life''. Certainly, he is renowned for having combined ballet classes

with Australian Rules Football practice.

''Oh, set this one straight for me,'' he laughs. ''I played when I was

a kid, like all Australian kids do, although I do still love football.''

He is amused by the anecdote, a neat publicity line, but also bemused by

its constant and hyperbolic circulation. ''I don't think a busload of

Manchester United fans are going to show up at Swan Lake because they

think Siegfried is a football player.''

He believes ballet is more enduring than sport. ''It combines

athleticism with artistry,'' he says gravely, ''and you can't make

artistry redundant: a dancer can always perform.'' Clearly, he need

never give up the day job.