Members joined both in-person and online for a vibrant day of practical sessions and inspiring conversations with people from the RAD and our partner organisations. 

Highlights included Alexander Campbell (Royal Ballet and RAD alumnus) leading a mixed repertoire masterclass; Céline Gittens (Birmingham Royal Ballet and RAD alumnus) launching a new scholarship for RAD members; panel discussions on safeguarding and careers in dance; and workshops on pre-school children and working with students with special educational needs.

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Art of the matter

Effective teaching

Dance Gazette

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Dame Beryl Grey, RAD Vice President and former ballerina, died on 10 December at the age of 95.

Beryl Grey joined Sadler’s Wells Ballet (now the Royal Ballet) in 1941 aged just 14. In 1957 she made history as the first British ballerina to guest with the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, and in 1964 danced with the Peking Ballet. Later artistic director of London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), her numerous honours included the RAD’s Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in 1995.

For several years, Dame Beryl was also the Dance Gazette agony aunt, alongside David McAllister in a popular column called David and the Dame. She drew on her own matchless experience for advice that was notable for its compassion but also no-nonsense candour. Here are some highlights.

Beryl Grey in 1956. Photo: GBL Wilson/RAD/ArenaPAL

My bored and badly-behaved pupils ruin the class for everyone.

If these children don’t want to learn and aren’t interested, then I don’t think they should continue. They shouldn’t be in a ballet class. It’s sacrilege. It should be like going into church – there should be respect, awe and discipline. When I was a little girl no one even considered disrupting a class. I think it’s been cheapened too much.

The teacher leading my school is strict and old-fashioned. Should she update her methods?

The young should be prepared to learn from older people. Youth is impatient, but I wouldn’t presume to tell an older person how to teach. As for her being strict – well, that’s no bad thing! Ballet is such a hard discipline, and it also requires tremendous self-discipline. Fashions may change, but fundamentally, teaching is a gift.

Beryl Grey with her husband Sven Svenson in 1966. Photo: GBL Wilson/RAD/ArenaPAL

My daughter wants to take ballet classes – but will the work and criticism upset her?

When I was a child, I worked extremely hard – I went to very few parties! I didn’t have a fun life, but I wanted to do it more than anything. Quite frankly, a child has to learn how to take criticism. I’m from the old school, where you learned you have to take the rough with the smooth. 

I have started a relationship with a dancer in my company. Do love and work mix?

Loving relationships are very important to dancers. You bare your soul on stage, so you must have someone behind you. Dancers are highly emotionally charged – for them, it is all or nothing at all. Personally, I always kept my friendships outside the company – which was partly curiosity about the world outside, and about other art forms. 

My pupil longs for a professional career, but I am sure she will never be good enough. 

You cannot possibly tell at 14 whether someone is going to make it. I was only 14 when I joined the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, but my partner, David Paltenghi, didn’t start dancing at all until he was 19. Your doubts may act as a wonderful incentive – the girl may work even harder because it’s a challenge.

My promising student is held back by her father, who says ballet is a waste of time.

Families can be funny, and very unreasonable. This father must be handled very carefully – take a softly, softly approach. If you make him angry, he might even take it out on the girl. Men do still think of dance as an insecure profession – I suspect that at the back of their minds they imagine a dancer will only get on if she sleeps with someone.

‘Respect, awe and discipline’: Beryl Grey in 1964. Photo: GBL Wilson/RAD/ArenaPAL
Beryl Grey with Gerald Ohn in 1964. Photo: GBL Wilson/RAD/ArenaPAL

I teach my daughter – but now she wants another teacher. 

It is always difficult to let go of a talented pupil – especially if she is your own daughter – but it is vital. She wants to explore and learn; she is growing up and becoming her own person. Nurturing can become smothering: I’m keen that there is a break, and not too late. 

My students complain I’m picking on them when I correct them!

Dancers have to learn to take corrections. It can be very upsetting, but you can never see yourself as others do and without corrections you can slip into bad habits very easily. The teacher has to be completely honest. Being an artist isn’t a comfortable career – and it’s quite a lonely one, although wonderfully fulfilling. On stage, you’re all alone – you are baring your soul – so gather up all the advice and correction you can.

My teachers say I am talented – can I have a ballet career and a life?

If you have any doubts, you must give up a career in dance. To be a principal dancer is a wonderful privilege. I became a principal when I was 14, but I never thought that one gave up anything. If you want to get to the top, you don’t do everything that other people do. If you’re going to become, in a way, unique, there is a price to pay. Partying is a very empty life – it doesn’t lead anywhere at all, but everything you put into your training you get back a thousandfold.

WATCH

Beryl Grey dancing Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theatre

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Art of the matter

In Fonteyn’s footsteps

Dance Gazette

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Toshima is a ward of the Tokyo Metropolitan area, to the north of the city. It faced the challenges of a negative reputation and a declining population, and had become known as the ‘ward at risk of disappearing.’ The International City of Arts and Culture Vision was created to improve the image of Toshima, using arts and culture to help spread the word about the area’s appeal.

The programme includes a collaboration with RAD Japan on a project by photographer Yoshitaka Ueno called RAD Meets Toshima!. Several photos are based around Hareza Ikebukuro, the cultural venue which is the driving force of the International City of Arts and Culture. Ikebukuro is creating new opportunities for artists from all over the world and becoming a hub for arts and culture, including musicals, kabuki, opera, Japanese traditional performing arts, and dance.

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Why Dance Matters

Kathryn Morgan

Dance Gazette

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The award-winning artist Zi Ling has been announced as the winner of the RAD’s portrait competition, launched to celebrate its brand-new global headquarters.

Artists from across the UK were asked to submit a portrait proposal of pioneering ballet dancer and founding RAD President Dame Adeline Genée, hoping to win a chance to create a painting for the RAD’s new home. The competition was created to honour the legacy of Dame Adeline’s extraordinary contribution to modern British ballet, ensuring that her portrait will be seen and admired by RAD staff, teachers and dancers alike for generations to come.

Zi Ling’s winning design for the portrait.

A judging panel of singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor, royal portraitist Ralph Heimans and Shevelle Dynott, former English National Ballet Dancer, alongside RAD President Dame Darcey Bussell, presented the winning commission to Zi Ling, a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour. The judges were hugely impressed by the over 60 entries, but felt Zi’s bold, expressive, and contemporary interpretation truly captured Genée’s essence.

I am very excited about this wonderful project,’ says Zi Ling. ‘As a painter, I specialise in portraits and figurative works – with my favourite subjects being dancers. The spirit of a dancer lies in their movements and rhythm, and I was inspired to paint Dame Adeline because of her distinctive mark on our history and society. In order to capture her beauty as well as her talent, the final portrait will be created in a water-based and pastel medium as a tribute to Degas and his famous ballet dancer paintings.’

Zi Ling.

Dame Darcey Bussell says, ‘I can’t think of a more fitting way to mark this new chapter in the RAD’s history than with this extraordinarily vibrant portrait. I can’t wait to unveil the new commission from Zi Ling in our brand-new home for dance.’ The proposal was also praised by judges Sophie Ellis-Bextor (for ‘her bold use of colour and depiction of Dame Adeline in a thoroughly modern light’) and Shevelle Dynott (‘I am sure Dame Adeline would have been thrilled’). The portrait artist Ralph Heimans adds, ‘with so many strong contenders, it was Zi’s proposal that really captured a sense of movement and bowled the judging panel away with her strong use of colour.’

Five other artists were highly commended in this competition supported by Freed of London: Caroline Assheton, Thea Beyleveld, Sophie Peters, Abby Hope Skinner and Siobhan Tate.

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For years, West Side Story was inextricably linked to Jerome Robbins’ choreography. On both stage and screen, the iconic finger clicks, bent knees and flaring skirts created an unmistakable movement language of simmering violence and romantic frustration.

Recent stage productions have allowed new choreographers to tackle this juicy material – including Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker on Broadway and Aletta Collins in Manchester. For Steven Spielberg’s new film, it’s Justin Peck, who as resident choreographer at New York City Ballet has danced in many Robbins’ ballets. ‘I’m standing on the shoulders of giants by taking this on,’ he acknowledges.

His grandfather and father watched the original stage production of West Side Story together, and when years later the young Peck saw the film in San Diego, it hit him, he said ‘like a gut-punch.’ Creating dance for Spielberg’s film he could draw on a cast that included not only Rita Moreno – who played Anita in the original film – but a new generation of vivid dancers. This time, Anita is Broadway star Ariana DeBose, who in 2020 told Dance Gazette about her approach to creating a character. ‘It all starts with movement,’ she said, ‘point blank, end of story. Because body language is everything.’

Watch

West Side Story trailer

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The overall winner (main picture) is by Jon Raffoul from the UK, and shows Lucie Apicella-Howard with the caption ‘Dance makes me feel on top of the world’. Colourful and bright, it conveys the energy and dynamic qualities of dance. Vera Stephenson, USA, wins the Luke Rittner Special Commendation with a photograph of a young dancer captioned ‘Dance makes me feel like me!’ The public choice award, which attracted 2072 votes, goes to a stunning photo by Stella Smyrnaki from Greece (‘Dance makes me feel strong’) of a pair of young dancers holding a beautiful pose in front of a mountain landscape.

The judges were Melanie Murphy (RAD Director of Marketing and Communications), Gerard Charles (RAD Artistic Director) and the Korean-American photographer and artist Dolly Brown, whose work focuses on dancers, movement and performance. She says, ‘it was wonderful to see the various ways in which the entrants chose to express their feelings about dance through the medium of photography, and to see such a huge variety of entries from all over the world, showing that dance is a universal language.’

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Walk tall

Altuğ Akin

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Tamara Karsavina, the leading ballerina of the Ballets Russes, became a great teacher. The syllabus she devised for the RAD’s teacher training course in 1954 is still taught today. This was the second painting of her by Jacques Émile Blanche; he previously painted her in The Firebird, one of her signature roles. Largely self-taught, Blanche attended dress rehearsals of the Ballets Russes to paint its star dancers. 

Luke Rittner, the RAD’s Chief Executive, says: ‘We are delighted to welcome Tamara Karsavina back home to the RAD. The painting will hang prominently in the new headquarters, continuing Karsavina’s lifelong mission to inspire dancers for generations to come.’

Photo: Christies Images Ltd
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