galleries
AS AN ONGOING PROJECT we plan to give space to a collection of galleries of photographs of the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet and in time we hope to build up a substantial archive of the companies' dancers and activities.
Please remember that all images remain copyright of the photographers and are not to be reproduced elsewhere without permission. Many thanks to all the photographers involved. Please direct any enquiries to us by email.
BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET - the 2010-2011 season
During the 2010-2011 season Birmingham Royal Ballet performed the full-length works Romeo and Juliet (Sir Kenneth MacMillan), La Fille mal gardée (Sir Frederick Ashton) and David Bintley's Cinderella, newly created for BRB's 20th anniversary. Shorter works included Concerto (MacMillan), The Lady and the Fool (John Cranko) and In The Upper Room (Twyla Tharp) in a programme titled Pointes of View; also Carmina Burana and Allegri Diversi (both by David Bintley). The photographs of these works in rehearsal are by Roy Smiljanic and Bill Cooper (Cinderella).
FREDERIKA DAVIS: The Royal Ballet in rehearsal, 2010-2011
This selection of rehearsal photos from the Royal Ballet's 2010/11 season includes scenes from John Cranko's Onegin; Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Winter Dreams and Manon; Sir Frederick Ashton's Sylvia, Cinderella, Les Patineurs, Tales of Beatrix Potter and Rhapsody; Matthew Hart's Peter and the Wolf; Giselle, Swan Lake; Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Alistair Marriott's Sensorium; David Bintley's Still Life at the Penguin Café; George Balanchine's Ballo della Regina; Wayne McGregor's Live Fire Exercise.
BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET - the 2009-2010 season
During the 2009-2010 season Birmingham Royal Ballet performed four full-length works, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and David Bintley's newly-created version of his Cyrano. In addition there were programmes of short works which included Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (Balanchine), Grosse Fuge (Hans van Manen), Theme and Variations (Balanchine), Powder (Stanton Welch), E=mc² (David Bintley), The Centre and its Opposite (Garry Stewart), Brouillards (John Cranko), The Dance House (David Bintley) and Allegri Diversi (David Bintley). The photographs of all these works in rehearsal are by Bill Cooper, Roy Smiljanic and Andrew Ross.
FREDERIKA DAVIS: The Royal Ballet in rehearsal, 2009-2010
This selection of rehearsal photos from the Royal Ballet's 2009/10 season includes some from Mayerling, Agon, Sphinx, Wayne McGregor's Limen, The Nutcracker, Jonathan Watkins' As One, Rushes, La Fille mal gardée, Concerto, The Judas Tree, Elite Syncopations, Cinderella, Electric Counterpoint, Liam Scarlett's Asphodel Meadows and Carmen.
JENNIE WALTON: Giselle – the Bolshoi Ballet at the Royal Opera House, 2010
During the Royal Ballet's break in July and August 2010 the Opera House was host to the Bolshoi Ballet who brought five full length ballets and a triple bill. Amongst these was Giselle with Natalia Osipova taking the lead after highly praised performances in New York (with American Ballet Theatre) and Moscow. Jennie Walton's photos give a detailed, dramatic
and moving account of the narrative and her performance. (The photo-call was only of Act I.)
JOHAN PERSSON: Asphodel Meadows - a new ballet by Liam Scarlett, May 2010
Liam Scarlett's first ballet for the main stage at Covent Garden premiered on May 5th 2010. He started his choreographic career whilst a student at the Royal Ballet School (White Lodge) and since joining the Royal Ballet has made several works which have been performed in the Clore Studio and Linbury Studio Theatre in addition to works performed outside the Company. In 2011 Asphodel Meadows won Liam the Critics' Circle National Dance Award for best classical choreography.
ANDREW ROSS: Out of the Wings, Swan Lake, BRB 2008
Andrew Ross was born in Devon and trained at the Royal Ballet Lower and Upper Schools. After briefly working in Europe he moved to Scotland, dancing with Scottish Ballet for 11 years. Having always had a keen interest in photography he started taking pictures of colleagues in rehearsal during a period of injury. Following positive feedback Andrew concluded his career as a dancer and now photographs for numerous dance and theatre companies throughout the UK. This unusual selection of images of Birmingham Royal Ballet's Swan Lake was taken from the wings.
FREDERIKA DAVIS: The Royal Ballet in rehearsal, 2008-2009
This second group of pictures by Frederika Davis is a selection of her rehearsal photos from the Royal Ballet's 2008-09 season and the first bill of 2009-10. Shown are Manon, L'Invitation au voyage, Theme and Variations, Ondine, The Nutcracker, Carmen, DGV, Isadora, Giselle, Les Sylphides, The Firebird, Jewels, Agon, Sphinx and Limen.
BILL COOPER: Birmingham Royal Ballet – the 2008-2009 season
Bill Cooper was born and brought up in London. He studied dance at the Legat School in Kent and worked professionally as a dancer in several companies in Europe culminating with five years in Scottish Ballet with Peter Darrell. Darrell encouraged him as a photographer and commissioned production photographs. His images of opera, theatre and dance are to be found in numerous newspapers, magazines and other publications; he has exhibited widely and his 200 page photo collection The Royal Ballet: In House was published in 2002.
This collection of photographs, mainly taken in rehearsal, documents the company's diverse 2008-2009 programme.
JENNIE WALTON: The Royal Ballet in rehearsal, 2003-2008
This gallery is of rehearsal photos by Jennie Walton taken between 2003 and 2008. Jennie trained at the Arts Educational School and danced professionally from the 1950s to the 70s. She has watched ballet from a young age and started collecting dance and theatre memorabilia in the 1950s. She is archivist of the Drury Lane Theatrical Fund and is currently involved in the ballet collection of the Museum of Music History. Jennie has photographed Royal Ballet rehearsals since the 1960s and has also photographed ballet in St Petersburg.
FREDERIKA DAVIS: Margot Fonteyn & Rudolph Nureyev - in the studio and on stage
These are photos taken in the 1960s from the archive of Frederika Davis. As a child Frederika had a great interest in photographs and dance and took ballet classes from an early age. At 16 her birthday present was a 8mm cine camera with which she started filming her school, her family life and her pets. Later she photographed and filmed her extensive foreign travels.
As an adult her interest in ballet was fostered by her husband, an acquaintance of Alicia Markova, and by watching dancers in the studio of Audrey de Vos where her daughter took classes. She started to photograph dancers, especially the Royal Ballet, and was very active during the 60s and 70s photographing on stage and in her own studio.
A change in personal circumstances led her to retire in the mid 70s but, in recent years, with the advent of digital cameras, she has resumed her old favourite occupation and is back taking photographs of the Royal Ballet and other companies in rehearsal.
