the companies & schools
companies & schools news archive
Useful Links
The Royal Opera House (the main ROH website)
RB company members
RB what's on
Royal Opera House Collections (ROH archive and performance database)
ROH on Facebook, Twitter, the ROH blog, videos and ROH on YouTube
ROH Student Standby tickets on Facebook
The Royal Ballet School, RBS News
Birmingham Royal Ballet
BRB company members
BRB what's on
BRB News, on Facebook, Twitter, videos, and On Tour blog
Rob Lindsay (BRB New Media Officer) on Twitter
Elmhurst School for Dance, Elmhurst News
Many video clips of Royal Ballet dancers from both companies can be found by searching on YouTube
| Dancers' own websites | |
| Carlos Acosta Federico Bonelli Alina Cojocaru Lauren Cuthbertson Vanessa Fenton Mara Galeazzi |
Johan Kobborg David Makhateli Marianela Nuñez Tamara Rojo Thiago Soares |
| Blogs on ballet.co | |
| Kristen McNally, RB |
Matthew Lawrence, BRB |
| RB dancers on Twitter | |
| Gary Avis Federico Bonelli Bennet Gartside Victoria Hewitt |
David Makhateli Genesia Rosato James Wilkie |
Company changes for the 2010/11 season
The Royal Ballet
Promotions:
to Principal Dancer - Sergei Polunin
to First Soloist - Johannes Stepanek
to Soloist - Melissa Hamilton
to First Artist - Claire Calvert, Akane Takada, Fernando Montaño, Erico Montes
Joiners:
Nehemiah Kish as Principal (from Royal Danish Ballet)
Itziar Mendizabal as First Soloist (from Leipzig Ballet)
Yasmine Naghdi as Artist (from Royal Ballet School, joined April 2010)
Sander Blommaert as Artist (from Royal Ballet School)
James Butcher as Artist (from Royal Ballet School)
Valentino Zuchetti as Artist (from Norwegian Ballet)
Camille Bracher as Artist (from Johannesburg, South Africa)
Beatriz Stix-Brunell as Artist (from School of American Ballet)
Leavers:
Miyako Yoshida, Ivan Putrov, Viacheslav Samodurov, Yohei Sasaki, Gemma Sykes, Cindy Jourdain, Ernst Meisner, Richard Ramsey, Xander Parish
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Promotions:
Momoko Hirata - from Soloist to First Soloist
Steven Monteith - from First Artist to Soloist
Mathias Dingman - from Artist to First Artist
Joiners:
William Bracewell and Machi Moritaka as Artists (from RBS)
Lewis Turner as Artist (from Elmhurst School for Dance). Lewis was awarded a Prix de Lausanne scholarship in January 2010 and has chosen to take up his year-long apprenticeship prize with BRB.
Leavers:
James Grundy, Christopher Larsen, Kosuke Yamamoto
Royal Ballet School graduate contracts 2010
The Royal Ballet Sander Blommaert, James Butcher, Yasmine Nagdhi
Birmingham Royal Ballet William Bracewell, Machi Moritaka
English National Ballet Barry Drummond, Angela Wood
Northern Ballet Theatre Matthew Broadbent
Scottish Ballet Nicole Cato, Imogen Chapman
Wayne McGregor Random Dance Louis McMiller
Boston Ballet Duncan Lyle
Ballet de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux Ashley Whittle
Cape Town City Ballet Jon Savage
Dresden Ballet Colombe Hays, Mari Kawanishi
Estonian Ballet Hannah Carter
Karlsruhe State Theatre of Baden Harriet Mills
Royal New Zealand Ballet Paul Russell
Stuttgart Ballet Nicholas Jones
Vienna State Opera Ballet Ashley Taylor
Zurich Ballet Dario Elia, Philip Helme
Flower Throws
Flower throws are an expression of affectionate honour for Principal Dancers on their retirement or sometimes their return from long recuperation from injury. With the permission of House management (and due warning to long-suffering stage management), money collected informally from ballet-goers, together with a donation from the Ballet Association, is used to buy flowers in bulk.
At the final curtain calls, flowers shower the dancer from the boxes adjacent to the stage, thrown by members of the Ballet Association, the House staff or other volunteers. As the cascade of flowers rains down, the audience applauds and often stands in ovation, creating a wonderful atmosphere and a touching and memorable scene.
Miyako Yoshida on a flower-strewn stage at the final curtain call of her last appearance at the
Royal Opera House in April 2010 after dancing Cinderella in Sir Frederick Ashton's ballet.
Photo ©Bill Cooper 2010
Memorial to the founders of the Royal Ballet in Westminster Abbey
On November 17, 2009 a service was held in Westminster Abbey to dedicate a memorial stone in Poets' Corner marking the contributions made by Dame Ninette de Valois, Founder Director, Sir Frederick Ashton, Founder Choreographer, Constant Lambert, Founder Music Director and Prima Ballerina Assoluta Dame Margot Fonteyn in establishing Britain's flagship national ballet company, along with its sister company Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School.
The memorial stone designed by Stephen Raw (more details and photos here) was unveiled by The Lady Sarah Chatto, Vice President of The Royal Ballet. The service was conducted by The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster who gave the address and there were readings by Sir John Tooley, David Bintley and Dame Monica Mason.
Photo by Andrew Dunsmore ©The Dean & Chapter of Westminster
The service included solos from works by Dame Ninette de Valois and Sir Frederick Ashton: Satan’s Solo from de Valois’s Job danced by Steven McRae and simultaneously on a second stage by Robert Parker, followed by Natasha Oughtred and Romany Pajdak in the solo from Ashton’s The Wise Virgins. White Lodge pupils Charlotte Edmonds, Thomas Bedford, Magdalena Chan and Ashley Hardwick, performed a new piece choreographed by Liam Scarlett to Constant Lambert’s ‘Rondino’ from his Romeo and Juliet Tableau no. 1. The Choir of White Lodge performed two pieces and before and after the service the Royal Ballet Sinfonia conducted by Barry Wordsworth performed excerpts from works in the Royal Ballet's heritage repertory.
Natasha Oughtred and Romany Padjak
(in background) in the solo from The Wise Virgins.
Photo by Andrew Dunsmore ©The Dean & Chapter of Westminster
Ballet Association Awards 2009
The Ballet Association Award was instituted in 2008.
The criteria for awards were set by the Royal Ballet School teaching staff and are:
- Royal Ballet School students from overseas in the first or second years of the Upper School
- who are outstanding dancers
- who would value additional funds as they are excluded from UK government sources
The value of the awards is £500 each and they were presented in July by Ballet Association Vice Chairman Sylvia Tyler to Imogen Chapman (on the left in the photo) and Angela Wood. Both students are 17 and enter their graduate year this autumn. Imogen is from Australia and Angela from Colorado. Imogen recently toured with Carlos Acosta and both will be travelling to Toronto with the School in November to participate in the 50th Anniversary celebrations for Canada’s National Ballet School.
Imogen Chapman and Angela Wood with Sylvia Tyler at the awards presentation
Photo ©Ashley Taylor
Personal Memories of the Royal Ballet
To celebrate the 75th anniversary in 2006 of the founding of what was to become the Royal Ballet, Ballet Association members contributed to a collection of memoirs and photographs.
Click for the text only version of the memoirs.
Click for the illustrated and fully formatted version (1.2Mb, requires Adobe Reader).
The photograph shows Dame Ninette de Valois with past and present members of the Company in 1996 at the celebration
of the 50th anniversary of the first
performance of The Sleeping Beauty. Photo by Peter Howard.
