Podcast » Mark Morris
American dancer, choreographer and director Mark Morris is one of the most successful and influential of contemporary modern choreographers.
decade » 1960s
Podcast » Antoinette Sibley
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...
Podcast » Violette Verdy
This interview with Violette Verdy is introduced by the dance critic and historian Alastair Macaulay. Violette Verdy’s laughter and intelligence shine through in this discussion with Clement...
One of Frederick Ashton’s most loved, successful and widely performed ballets, La Fille mal gardée is a sunny, bucolic version of a work dating back to the end of the 18th century. The great...
Timeline Event » 1960 – Premiere of Kenneth MacMillan’s The Invitation by The Royal Ballet Touring Company
In a bold move, in The Invitation Kenneth MacMillan chose to create a sexual drama of shifting emotions and desires that culminates with the rape of a young girl by an older married man. Created for...
Timeline Event » 1961 – Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s The Two Pigeons by The Royal Ballet Touring Company
Originally performed under the title Les Deux Pigeons, and premiering on St Valentine’s Day in 1961 by The Royal Ballet Touring Company, Frederick Ashton’s ballet The Two Pigeons is a cousin to...
Timeline Event » 1961 – Walter Gore’s London Ballet launched
Walter Gore’s London Ballet gave its first performance in Hintlesham Hall, Ipswich, on the 28 July 1961 with an evening of Gore’s choreography. The musical director and co-founder was Michael...
The Snow Maiden was the first Anglo-Soviet collaboration in ballet, Vladimir Bourmeister being the first Soviet choreographer to work with any Western company. It was later staged by the...
Timeline Event » 1961 – Rudolf Nureyev defects in Paris
Following his defection from the Soviet Union in Paris earlier that year, Rudolf Nureyev gives his first performance in the Britain in 1961 in Poème tragique at the Royal Academy of Dancing’s Gala...
Timeline Event » 1962 – First performance of Kenneth MacMillan’s The Rite of Spring by The Royal Ballet
Igor Stravinsky’s 1913 score for Vaslav Nijinsky’s short-lived ballet The Rite of Spring has been used by countless subsequent choreographers for their own productions. Among the very finest...
Timeline Event » 1962 – First time Ballet Rambert dances Don Quixote
The first staging by a British company of the popular Russian classic, Ballet Rambert presented Marius Petipa’s Don Quixote at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool, on June 28, 1962, in a version by...
Timeline Event » 1962 – John Gilpin becomes director of London Festival Ballet
John Gilpin, a major star with London Festival Ballet, was appointed the company’s new director in 1962. He remained in position until 1965.
Timeline Event » 1963 – Balletmakers Limited created
Established as a facilitator for the creation of new dance pieces outside of established companies, Balletmakers Limited grew out of Teresa Early’s desire to choreograph despite her understanding...
Timeline Event » 1963 – Frederick Ashton becomes director of The Royal Ballet
In 1963, Ninette de Valois stepped down as director of The Royal Ballet, although she remained actively involved in the companies and school she created until her death in 2001. She was replaced by...
Timeline Event » 1963 – The Royal Ballet dances the ‘Kingdom of the Shades’ scene from Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère for the first time
This mysteriously beautiful ballet, originally in four Acts, was created in 1877 by Marius Petipa, ballet master of the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg. This typically Romantic tale has undergone...
Timeline Event » 1963 – Premiere of Peter Darrell’s Mods and Rockers ’63 by Western Theatre Ballet danced to music by The Beatles
Among the choreographers who have created works from the music of The Beatles was Peter Darrell, who specialised in narrative storytelling through classical ballet. In 1963 he created a ‘beat...
Timeline Event » 1964 – Ballet for All established
Born in 1920, writer and lecturer Peter Brinson studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College, Oxford. After serving during World War Two, Brinson worked at the London Film Centre, and...
Timeline Event » 1964 – London Dance Theatre founded
In 1964, Jack Carter and Norman McDowell launched a small company, London Dance Theatre, for which Carter created Agrionia. It featured McDowell as a Dionysos, who punishes three sisters for refusing...
Timeline Event » 1964 – Premiere of Frederick Ashton’s The Dream by The Royal Ballet
In 1964, with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth as a stimulus, Frederick Ashton created a one-act ballet based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In it he visualised, succinctly and...
Acquired in 1964 for The Royal Ballet by Frederick Ashton as director and born out of his reverence for the choreographer, Bronislava Nijinska’s charming Les Biches, a seemingly light-as-a-soufflé...
Kenneth MacMillan was eager to give ballet its ‘new wave’, and though his earlier one-act works revealed a unique perspective and command of ballet’s expressive potential, it was his first...
Timeline Event » 1965 – International Ballet Caravan established by Alexander Roy and Christina Gallea. It was later re-named Alexander Roy London Ballet Theatre
The Alexander Roy London Ballet Theatre was a small independent company that was strongly committed to ballet rather than modern dance. Based in London, it toured for a remarkable 30 years, visiting...
The acquisition of a second Bronislava Nijinska work by The Royal Ballet ensured the survival of perhaps her greatest masterpiece. Les Noces, an austere depiction of a Russian peasant wedding, was...
Timeline Event » 1966 – The Royal Ballet Touring Company dances Act III of Marius Petipa’s Raymonda for the first time
Marius Petipa’s Raymonda was originally performed by the Imperial Russian Ballet in St Petersburg in 1898 to music by Alexander Glazunov. Rudolf Nureyev staged the full-length Raymonda for The...
Timeline Event » 1966 – Ballet Rambert, under the direction of Norman Morrice, becomes a modern dance company
Norman Morrice was born in Mexico in 1931. He studied at Marie Rambert’s school and joined Ballet Rambert in 1953, becoming a principal dancer. In 1962, Morrice travelled to the United States of...
Timeline Event » 1966 – The Royal Ballet performs Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth for the first time
Das Lied von der Erde was an orchestral song-cycle composed by Gustav Mahler in 1907 to 1908. It is based on six songs translated from the Chinese originals by Hans Bethge. The songs dwell on themes...
Timeline Event » 1966 – London Festival Ballet dances Serge Lifar’s Noir et blanc for the first time
Serge Lifar’s spectacular and enchanting Noir et blanc (later called Suite en blanc), offering multiple technical and stylistic challenges and opportunities to shine, established itself as a firm...
First performed by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1928, George Balanchine’s Apollo was only the fourth work by Balanchine to enter The Royal Ballet’s repertoire after Ballet Imperial in...
Timeline Event » 1967 – London School of Contemporary Dance founded
After seeing Martha Graham’s company perform in Britain in 1954, philanthropist Robin Howard set out to develop and sustain contemporary dance in Britain. He established the Contemporary Dance...
Timeline Event » 1967 – The Royal Ballet Choreographic Group launched
Giving their first performance at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, in 1967, The Royal Ballet Choreographic Group was headed by Leslie Edwards and supported by the Friends of Covent Garden. Over...
One of Glen Tetley’s earliest works, Pierrot Lunaire, danced to music by Arnold Schoenberg, brought him immediate recognition. An attempt at fusing classical and contemporary dance forms, he...
Timeline Event » 1968 – Beryl Grey becomes director of London Festival Ballet
After a period of instability, London Festival Ballet appointed Beryl Grey as the company’s new artistic director. She commissioned a number of important productions for the company, including Mary...
Enigma Variations was choreographed by Frederick Ashton to Edward Elgar’s music in designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman. It was first performed by The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 1968. Elgar...
Timeline Event » 1968 – Premiere of Glen Tetley’s Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain by Ballet Rambert
Inspired by the concentrated tranquility of Chinese T’ai-chi, Glen Tetley’s Embrace Tiger and Return to Mountain indicated the continuing re-focusing of Ballet Rambert’s repertoire towards the...
The London School of Contemporary Dance (LCDS) moved to its present premises on Duke’s Road, London, in 1969, providing it with larger studios, a small theatre and office space. The building, a...
In this three-part work for six dancers trapped in a non-specific situation, Robert Cohan’s Cell moved away from abstraction and introduced a more human element, albeit the dance concerned man’s...
Timeline Event » 1969 – Scottish Theatre Ballet (later Scottish Ballet) established
In 1969, Peter Darrell accepted an invitation to relocate the company he opened with Elizabeth West – Western Theatre Ballet – to Glasgow, becoming Scottish Theatre Ballet. This marked...
Timeline Event » 1969 – Northern Dance Theatre (later Northen Ballet Theatre) formed
Canadian-born Laverne Meyer studied at the Rambert School and The Royal Ballet School, joining Western Theatre Ballet in 1957, where he danced principal roles before eventually becoming assistant...
Grace Note » …and on: Fashion & Ballet in Step
Fashion and ballet have a symbiotic relationship, each drawing on the other. Twice a year, fashion designers must cast around for hot influences. These might come from anywhere but time and again,...
Grace Note » 1970s: Adapting Adaptations
Many ballets adapt themes and short stories from other media. But the challenges and problems of adaptation are not confined to ballet. Adapt or die is a rule of life. Of art, too. We can’t go on...
Grace Note » 1960s – 1970s: Ballet For All
Outreach and Accessibility dominate in recent times, but Peter Brinson’s Ballet for All was way ahead of its time in this respect. My tour with Ballet for All in 1967 is a map with gaps: gaps in...
Grace Note » 1960’s: The war is not going well. Peter Cook is addressing Jonathan Miller, both are in RAF uniforms.
The 1960s is often seen as a golden age for ballet, but it was also an exciting time in all the arts. “We need a futile gesture at this stage it will raise the whole tone of the war,” he says....
Grace Note » 1940s onwards: The Wartime Quartet
It wasn’t only in ballet that women were leading British ballet forward. But in philosophy too, four redoubtable women change the face of the subject. G. E. M. Anscombe (1919 – 2001),...
Grace Note » 1920s – 1950s: Neo-Romanticism and After
According to Virginia Woolf, ‘on or about December 1910 human character changed’. The event from 1910 she was referring to was the famous exhibition entitled ‘Manet and the...