Fiona Chadwick (1960–). British ballerina, teacher and ballet mistress

Fiona Chadwick trained at The Royal Ballet School (Chadwick was in an exceptionally talented year group that also included Bryony Brind, Julie Rose, Deborah Weiss and Susan Pond), and joined The Royal Ballet in 1978. Chadwick, a technically strong, musical and versatile dancer, spent her first year at The Royal Ballet appearing with Ballet For All, its lecture-demonstration company, but quickly made her mark at Covent Garden when she danced the title role in Mikhail Fokine’s The Firebird in 1980 at short notice. Other leading roles followed, including Myrtha in Giselle, the title role in Kenneth MacMillan’s Isadora, Raymonda in Raymonda Act III, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. Chadwick was promoted to principal in 1984 and continued to dance with the company until 1995. Her repertoire was extensive, encompassing the ballerina roles in Giselle, The Nutcracker, La Bayadère (both Nikiya and Gamzatti) and Don Quixote, and leading roles in Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, The Two Pigeons, Les Patineurs, Birthday Offering, A Month in the Country, Cinderella, Scènes de ballet and Symphonic Variations; MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Song of the Earth, Elite Syncopations, Mayerling (Mary Vetsera, Mitzi Caspar and Marie Larisch), Gloria and The Rite of Spring; David Bintley’s Young Apollo and The Planets; Mikhail Fokine’s Les Sylphides; Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Biches; Ninette de Valois’ Checkmate; Jirí Kylián’s Return to the Strange Land; George Balanchine’s Symphony in C, Ballet Imperial and Serenade; Rudolf Nureyev’s staging of Laurencia; and Glen Tetley’s La Ronde. She created roles in MacMillan’s Le Baiser de la fée and The Prince of the Pagodas; Richard Alston’s Midsummer; David Bintley’s Galanteries and The Trials of Prometheus; and Ashley Page’s Pursuit and Piano. After leaving The Royal Ballet, Chadwick appeared as a guest artist with Scottish Ballet and London City Ballet, and then joined Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures (now New Adventures), where she created the role of the Queen in his hugely successful version of Swan Lake. After she stopped dancing, Fiona Chadwick worked at The Royal Ballet School, Central School of Ballet and London Children’s Ballet.