1997 – The first Royal Albert Hall ballet-in-the-round mounted

Now a regular fixture in Britain’s dance calendar, English National Ballet staged its first in-the-round production at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1997 with Derek Deane’s staging of Swan Lake. With seemingly hundreds of dancers appearing as swans, the production was a popular success with audiences, and further productions were added in the years that followed, including Romeo and Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty and Strictly Gershwin, all produced by Deane, as well as Christopher Wheeldon’s Cinderella.