Podcast » Mark Morris
American dancer, choreographer and director Mark Morris is one of the most successful and influential of contemporary modern choreographers.
decade » 1990s
Podcast » 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...
Timeline Event » 1990 – Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet renamed Birmingham Royal Ballet
In 1987, Birmingham City Council and the Birmingham Hippodrome invited Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet to become a resident company, meaning Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet would relocate its base to...
Timeline Event » 1990 – Irek Mukhamedov joins The Royal Ballet
After his defection from the Soviet Union, Bolshoi Ballet star Irek Mukhamedov joined The Royal Ballet. He remained with the company for 11 years, acting as a final muse for Kenneth MacMillan and...
Timeline Event » 1990 – Ivan Nagy becomes director of English National Ballet
After Peter Schaufuss stepped down as artistic director of English National Ballet, Ivan Nagy was appointed his successor.
Timeline Event » 1991 – Candoco Dance Company
Celeste Dandeker-Arnold was a dancer with London Contemporary Dance Theatre who became a quadriplegic following an accident on stage that broke her neck. She subsequently studied costume design at...
Timeline Event » 1991 – Premiere of Massimo Moricone’s of Romeo and Juliet by Northern Ballet Theatre
The premiere of Massimo Moricone’s production of Romeo and Juliet for Northern Ballet Theatre took place at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool, 1991, with direction by Christopher Gable, music by Serge...
Timeline Event » 1991 – Galina Samsova becomes director of Scottish Ballet
Galina Samsova was artistic director of Scottish Ballet from 1991 until 1997. There, she collaborated with choreographer Oleg Vinogradov of the Kirov Ballet, mounted new productions of Swan Lake and...
Timeline Event » 1991 – A Chance to Dance programme established
Set up by The Royal Ballet in 1991, A Chance to Dance offered free ballet classes to underprivileged children in three London boroughs. Inspired in part by the powerful social impact Arthur...
‘I have tried to capture the atmosphere and melancholy of Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece.’ So said Kenneth MacMillan in his programme note for his 1991 ballet Winter Dreams. Inspired by...
Timeline Event » 1991 – The Royal Ballet performs William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated for the first time
First performed by the Paris Opera Ballet in 1987, William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated entered the repertory of The Royal Ballet for the first time in 1991. With crashing music by...
In 1992 Wayne McGregor founded Random Dance. Ten years later, the company would become the first resident company at the new Sadler’s Wells Theatre. McGregor set out to establish a visual language...
Timeline Event » 1993 – Derek Deane becomes director of English National Ballet
Derek Deane, the choreographer and former principal dancer with The Royal Ballet, was appointed artistic director of English National Ballet. He created a number of new productions for the coming,...
Timeline Event » 1994 – Richard Alston Dance Company opened
Choreographer Richard Alston, one of the first cohort of students of London Contemporary Dance School, had been director of Ballet Rambert from 1986 to 1992. In 1994 he opened his own company,...
Matthew Bourne created a revolutionary interpretation of Swan Lake for Adventures in Motion Pictures at Sadler’s Wells, London, in 1995. The swans were bare-chested men dancing in shorts resembling...
Timeline Event » 1995 – David Bintley becomes director of Birmingham Royal Ballet
Following Peter Wright’s retirement, David Bintley was appointed artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, a position he held until 2019. Under his leadership, as well as dancing works by...
To launch his leadership of Birmingham Royal Ballet, David Bintley created a new version of Carmina Burana to Carl Orff’s epic score. The production, in designs by Philip Prowse, was spectacular,...
Timeline Event » 1996 – ballet.co website launched
With the proliferation of internet users during the 1990s, in 1996 Bruce Marriott established ballet.co as an online forum to give ballet audiences a space to talk and exchange views about what they...
Timeline Event » 1997 – The Duchy Ballet established
The Duchy Ballet was established in 1997 by Kay Jones to commemorate the opening of The Hall for Cornwall in Truro. Jones was born in Cornwall and trained locally in the Cecchetti Method before...
Timeline Event » 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...
Timeline Event » 1997 – New premises for dance companies
The millennium years and the 2010s can be seen as a time when investment within British dance went not to artistic output, but to infrastructure in the form of new facilities for dance companies....
Timeline Event » 1998 – Yorke Dance Project founded
Since its inception in 1998 by Yolande Yorke-Edgell, Yorke Dance Project has had a transatlantic flavour. Yorke-Edgell first worked professionally with Extemporary Dance Theatre, a venture...
Timeline Event » 1998 – Carlos Acosta joins The Royal Ballet
Carlos Acosta joined The Royal Ballet and gave his first performance with the company in William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated at Sadler’s Wells. He remained with the company until...
Timeline Event » 1999 – Robert North becomes director of Scottish Ballet
When Galina Samsova stepped down as director of Scottish Ballet, she was replaced by Robert North in 1999.
Timeline Event » 1999 – The BalletBoyz established
British-born dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt first met at The Royal Ballet School and built an important friendship during their respective careers as principal dancers with The Royal...
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,...
Photography has continually transformed itself, like all the other arts. How has this affected the photography of ballet? When I joined Scottish Ballet in 1977 Peter Darrell organised a Choreographic...
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 » 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),...