Voices of British Ballet

• Antoinette Sibley

  Dame Antoinette Sibley talks with Alastair Macaulay. Her wonderful mix of enthusiasm, appreciation and practicality typify the glorious mercurial talent that has beguiled a generation of dancers and public alike.Sibley talks about her early aspirations, working with Sir Frederick Ashton and her career-defining partnership with Sir Anthony Dowell.The episode is introduced by the dance critic and writer Alastair Macaulay in conversation with Natalie Steed.Antoinette Sibley was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1939. She trained at the Arts Educational School in Chiswick before joining the Sadler’s Wells School in 1949 and the Royal Ballet Company in 1956. In 1959 she was coached by Tamara Karsavina, the great Russian Ballerina from the Imperial Russian Ballet and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. Later that year she danced Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. In 1960, she became a principal dancer and in 1961 danced Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. 1964 saw a pivotal moment in her career: the creation of the role of Titania in Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, alongside Sir Anthony Dowell’s Oberon. This was the start of one of the great partnerships in the history of the Royal Ballet, indeed of ballet, and one which lasted for nearly a quarter of a century.Her professional stage career ran from the late 1950s until her late forties in 1988, with a few years of retirement in the early 1980s. During her career with the Royal Ballet, Sibley danced many principal roles in the classical and in the dramatic repertoires. She created major roles for Frederick Ashton, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Michael Corder and other choreographers. She danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov in the Hollywood film The Turning Point (1978). As President of the Royal Academy of Dance from 1991 to 2012 and as a coach at the Royal Ballet, her involvement in British Ballet continued into the 21st century.She was appointed CBE for services to dance in 1973, and DBE in 1996. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• After Diaghilev

  The ballet writer Gerald Dowler is joined in a special episode of Voices of British Ballet by Monica Mason (former Royal Ballet student, principal dancer and director), Jane Pritchard (curator of dance, theatre and performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum and former archivist to Rambert Dance), and Judith Mackrell (former dance critic at the Guardian, and author of Bloomsbury Ballerina, a biography of Lydia Lopokova).Together, they set out what the ballet scene was in London at the beginning of the 1920s, the impact of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes on that scene and explore why Marie Rambert and Dame Ninette de Valois focused, at first, on training.The Sleeping Princess, Sergei Diaghilev’s 1921 production of Marius Petipa’s ballet was described by critics at the time as a “gorgeous calamity”. Our guests examine its impact on the appetite for dance in Great Britain in succeeding years and set out what happened to ballet in Britain after Digahilev’s death in 1929.The contributions of Marie Rambert, Ninette de Valois, Lilian Baylis, Dame Alicia Markova and Constant Lambert are assessed and our guests consider what this new British ballet might have looked like in terms of technique as well as discussing de Valois work as a choreographer of ballets such as Checkmate and The Rake’s Progress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Christopher Wheeldon

  Dame Darcey Bussell talks to Natalie Steed to introduce an interview with the dancer and choregrapher, Christopher Wheeldon.Christopher Wheeldon talks in 2003 with his former classmate and Royal Ballet First Soloist Jane Burn. Christopher speaks about his early years in dance with candour and charm, mentioning Anatole Grigoriev, his teacher at White Lodge, and his early forays into choreography with the inspirational Norman Morrice.Christopher Wheeldon was born in 1973 in Yeovil, Somerset. He started training as a dancer from the age of 8. From 1984-1991 he attended the Royal Ballet School, winning the gold medal at the Prix de Lausanne in 1991. That same year he joined the Royal Ballet. In 1993 he joined the New York City Ballet, becoming a soloist in 1998.He began choreographing for the New York City Ballet in 1997, retiring from dancing in 2000 to concentrate on choreography. In 2001, Wheeldon became the New York City Ballet’s first resident choreographer and first resident artist. From 2006-10 he also ran his own company, the Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company.Aside from his work in New York and also in London, Wheeldon has established himself as a choreographer worldwide, including works for the San Francisco Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. In 2011 he choreographed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Royal Ballet’s first full-length commission for 20 years, followed in 2014 by The Winter’s Tale. Other commissions include Strapless (2016) and Like Water for Chocolate (2022). In 2014 he directed and choreographed a musical version of An American in Paris, first performed in Paris, then in New York and London. He was awarded an OBE in 2016 for services to dance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Wendy Toye

  Adam Cooper talks to Natalie Steed to introduce this inteview with the dancer, director and choreographer Wendy Toye.It begins with Wendy Toye’s memory of chatting to Sergei Diaghilev at the age of 9, giving her opinion of L’Après-Midi d’un faune, and the pace never stops. She tells Patricia Linton of her love for dancing of all sorts. From the age of 5 she performed in Hiawatha at the Royal Albert Hall. At 14 she became a member of the Vic-Wells Ballet, while dancing commercially as well. She speaks of touring in Denmark, with Adeleine Genée leading the company, and being singled out by the Prince of Wales. Her career, in the 1930s and subsequently, involved films, shows, cabaret and television, as well as ballet, opera and choreography. At the age of 90 she reflects on how she worked in so many fields, not, as she says, peaking in any of them, but having enjoyed all of it and all of them.Wendy Toye was born in Clapton in 1917, and very early showed considerable balletic and theatrical talent. As a child she was often appearing on the stage, as well as taking serious ballet lessons from Tamara Karsavina, among others. She won the European Charleston Championship at the age of 9. In 1931, she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet Company, though continuing to work in cabaret. She then worked for the Markova-Dolin Company from 1934-5, and choreographed the ballet Aucassin and Nicolette for them. In 1937, partly as a result of an appendix operation, she ceased to dance in ballet, and embarked on her long, distinguished and industrious career in the commercial theatre, films and television, as actress, dancer, choreographer and director (which, in her later years, included directing a number of operas, particularly for Sadler’s Wells/English National Opera). Wendy Toye was appointed CBE in 1992 for services to the arts. She died in Hillingdon in 2010. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  23:31
• Mark Morris

  American dancer, choreographer and director Mark Morris is one of the most successful and influential of contemporary modern choreographers. Interviewed by Gerald Dowler, he talks frankly about the role of improvisation in choreography, egalitarianism in dance, his experiences with international dance forms other than ballet and his particular affection for British dance.The interview is introduced by the dancer and founder of Voices of British Ballet, Patricia Linton, in conversation with Natalie Steed.Mark Morris was born in Seattle in 1956. Having been excited by both flamenco and his sister’s ballet classes, he himself began studying Spanish dance at the age of 9. In 1970 he joined a dance ensemble specialising in Balkan dance, which was the beginning of a lifetime’s passionate immersion in dance and music of all sorts. He went to New York in 1976, during the era of Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp and Lucinda Childs, to pursue his study of dance. He began working with a group of like-minded modern dancers, who shared Morris’ focus on beauty, genuine musicality and community. From 1980 on Morris began choreographing in earnest and his group was henceforth known as the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG). From the start his work was recognized for its musicality, and its deep understanding of the medium of dance. Hallmarks of the Morris style were the recognizable ordinary body-types of the Company dancers and its up-front treatment of contentious issues, both political and sexual.From 1980 until 1988, the growth of Morris’s reputation as a choreographer and dancer resulted in an engagement as resident company at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, following the departure of Maurice Béjart. While there he created two of his most famous works: L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (based on poetry by Milton and music by Handel) and The Hard Nut (a revelatory version of The Nutcracker). The company remained there until 1991. From 1990 until 1995, with Mikhail Baryshnikov, he founded and ran the White Oak Dance Project. In 2001 Morris and MMDG moved into a permanent headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, which included a community centre and a school. As well as working with his own company, Morris has created works for many international ballet companies and for opera productions in San Francisco, Washington, Boston, London and New York, among other places. His own works for the MMDG, around 150 of them, are notable for their range of musical styles and genres, from Bach and Vivaldi through modern composers to jazz and the Beatles, the repertoire also includes music from Balkan and Asian traditions, as well as collaborations with folk performers and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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