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RB Principal Pipeline


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Being able to promote a dedicated and talented dancer must be one of the best parts of leading a great Company; not being able to promote another, one of the worst. Worse still must be having to accept (or even harder, encourage) the  retirement, from active performances,  of a long-standing Company favourite, even though it can remove a log jam and enable well deserved promotions right down the line.

 

I just wonder if we are to see any such retirements later this year...

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For me, there are certain dancers who have just got star quality and those are the ones who belong in the Principal rank. Dancers like Hayward and Naghdi just ‘had it’ and so a promotion was well deserved. Other dancers like Takada, may not have had that same quality before their promotion but displayed such an incredible technique and ability to dance that again a promotion was well deserved. I have to say that since her promotion, Takada has really displayed star quality for me and I find myself wanting to watch her more and more.

 

I look at dancers like Isabella Gasparini or Calvin Richardson and I see some form of star quality that makes me hope they have a lot more opportunity over the next few years.

 

I would say that Matt Ball is probably the only dancer who I could see being realistically promoted to Principal at the end of this season. I’m sure Reece Clarke will follow soon and that Calvin Richardson, Joseph Sissens, Ben Ella, Lucas Braendsrod(?) and Will Braceful will eventually get there too. I have been noticing Joonhyuk Juk and Stanslaw Wegryzyn too in Swan Lake and there is a lot of potential for both of these dancers to do some exciting stuff over the next few years. I think we can expect that Fumi Kaneko and Anna Rose O’Sullivan will get to Principal level as well in the next few years and I view Ashley Dean as a dark horse to work her way up too. Mayara Magri has had a wonderful season and her Myrtha left me with my jaw dropped for days. I hope she is promoted soon but I think she could make it to Principal in the next couple of years as well.

 

To be honest, the level of talent at the Royal right now is pretty unbelievable. Bar a few, I think the majority could all go all the way! It’s an incredible time to be watching them perform and it’s a shame they can’t all make it to Principal! I think what I would like to see more of though is the younger dancers being given more opportunity and for Kevin to take more risks with casting. I’d like to see some new Romeos and Juliets and maybe some new dancers in Two Pigeons next season. Someone like Mayara should be given Kitri next season for example. 

 

What I like about Kevin is that he does provide opportunities for dancers and he is trying to bring a lot of dancers through from the school. I hope he takes notice of our views on partnerships but on the whole, I trust his judgement!

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19 minutes ago, ToThePointe said:

Will Braceful will eventually get there too.

Bracewell plus Graceful = Braceful!

Certainly in line for promotion, if he continues with the sort of sensitive, musically-aware classical performances he is giving us in Swan Lake.

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I hadn’t thought much of Bracewell this Season but his debut as Siegfried was mesmerising. His performance was so detailed and thoughtful and he danced beautifully and partnered Takada so well. Had no idea he had that in him so now I’ve seen it I expect him to show it in everything he does from now on!!!

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34 minutes ago, ToThePointe said:

I would say that Matt Ball is probably the only dancer who I could see being realistically promoted to Principal at the end of this season. I’m sure Reece Clarke will follow soon and that Calvin Richardson, Joseph Sissens, Ben Ella, Lucas Braendsrod(?) and Will Braceful will eventually get there too

 

I'm just a little surprised to see no mention of James Hay in your list and can't help wondering if this was an oversight?  As you say there is a real wealth of talent throughout the Royal Ballet.

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17 hours ago, loveclassics said:

Are we allowed to ask what is McRae's injury?  I know virtuoso dancers like him often suffer worse injuries than less 'firecracker' dancers but he seems very young to have the sort of injury that has kept him off-stage for so long.

 

Well, there's a photo of him on his Instagram account, on crutches and with a bandage on the rear of the foot/lower leg, so I guess you can draw some conclusions from that.  Plus he's not that young any more, surely?

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Does anybody know what has happened to Christina Arestis? I thought she was wonderful in Anastasia, Mayerling and The Winter’s Tale and was so pleased at her promotion to Principal Character Artist. However, she was replaced in TWT this season and isn’t cast in Mayerling next season. She doesn’t seem to have appeared in any “Prinicpal Character” roles this season either, although I’m willing to be corrected.

 

Equally, does anybody have any thoughts on why Hikaru Kobayashi isn’t cast in La Bayadère (having danced Nikiya and Gamzatti last time) or The Nutcracker, or Yuhui Choe in La Bayadère (having danced Ganzatti last time or Nikiya previously) or Melissa Hamilton in The Nutcracker?

 

There’s a very honest interview with Thiago Soares in The Dancing Times addressing some of the casting decisions now being made for him, and, looking at the casting, I’m guessing they are beginning to apply to Nehemiah Kish (who I really like, as opposed to many, it seems on here).

 

It must be very difficult for the AD balancing his casting decisions against the established and the up-coming, but I sense we are at a time of change...

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8 hours ago, Jamesrhblack said:

Equally, does anybody have any thoughts on why Hikaru Kobayashi isn’t cast in La Bayadère (having danced Nikiya and Gamzatti last time) 

 

Yes, but ditto bbb's post above.

Based on previous years, I'm sure that there will be a press release soon which will cover these and at least some of the other questions which are being raised.

The casting for La Bayadere would surely have been agreed with Natalia Makarova. Regarding the female roles, apart from the Principals, Claire Calvert was an impressive Gamzatti in the last run and (in my view) Mayara Magri seems made for the role. 

 

Edited by capybara
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To outsiders promotion is not always an obvious reward for excellence in performance. Sometimes it is an exercise in pragmatism. It is always something of a gamble as management cannot know how a dancer will take the pressure which promotion to principal brings with it. Some dancers have said that they dId not want the pressure that goes with the rank.

 

Someone asked why the AD might promote a dancer of thirty or even older to the rank of principal. One reason may be that the AD knows that he will need a new principal  to replace a dancer or dancers who will retire fairly soon but does not want to prevent exceptionally talented  younger dancers who are not yet ready to be promoted prevented from attaining the rank. As the Royal Ballet does not have a fixed retirement age succession planning is more difficult for the company management than it is at the POB where the director knows exactly when the company's  dancers will retire and can plan accordingly. If you are an AD in a company with no fixed retirement age with three or more principal dancers approaching their fortieth year a tall male dancer who is  a quick learner and has saved the day on a number of occasions by learning principal roles in a matter of days and has been relatively injury free may seem to be just the person the company needs as a principal while younger talented dancers are learning their trade, working their way up through the company's ranks and developing as artists. In such circumstances promoting a company member who is familiar with its repertory and its culture may seem far less of a gamble than recruiting someone from the outside, who may never completely fit into the company. While one always hopes that principal dancers will be charismatic as well  as useful most companies seem to have one or two principals who while they may not be the most exciting of dancers, are able to dance virtually everything in the company's repertory to a high standard and seem to be virtually indestructible. A dancer who is exceptionally versatile and always seems to be fit when everyone else is off sick or injured is a very useful company asset.

 

Promotions have an impact on a company's morale. While management should never promote internally if the dancers in question do not have the necessary potential and skills it can do company morale real damage if it only ever seems to  recruit dancers to its senior ranks who have no prior connection with the company. I have read  that Morera's promotion was something  of a boost to the com[any's morale and that she was greeted with a round of applause from her colleagues when she went to class the following morning.  Her colleagues came up to her saying that her promotion made all the hard work worthwhile. Her promotion came at a time when it must have seemed to many company members that the best way to secure appointment to the company's senior ranks was to have little connection with the company and little or  none with the school. I  am not suggesting that Morera did not deserve her promotion and had not earned it merely  that it was interpreted by her colleagues as a reward for hard work and commitment to the company and its repertory. At the time of her appointment she had proved herself to be an outstanding dancer in the Ashton repertory which was not an area into which all of the foreign trained dancers had wished to venture.

 

 Promoting a  dancer to principal is a bit of a gamble for any AD and it may prove to be an exercise in compromise and  pragmatism where factors such as height have to be taken into account. Does he or she promote a male dancer of exceptional technical ability who has worked his socks off to attain that level of skill but is particularly short or one who while only possessing a good technique is tall enough to partner a wide range of dancers and is therefore going to be far more useful to the company ? Wayne Sleep is a case in point he has said that while a male dancer who had a good technique and was 5ft 7ins  would have got into the company relatively easily in his time, he had been told that if he was to get into the company he had to be outstanding technically and jump higher than anyone else because he was so short. In the mid 1960's when he began dancing with the company talented male dancers were not in plentiful supply and there was in general a considerable gap in technique between dancers in the lower ranks of the company and those at the top. He became a principal dancer but height may well be a determining factor in whether dancers like Hay or Sambe  become principal dancers.The company already has two short principal male dancers in McRae and Campbell and they can't all dance with Takada. The fact that both Hayward and Naghdi are not that tall may reduce the significance of height as a factor in deciding who gets promoted to principal in the next year or two. Hay has proved an outstanding classical dancer during the last  couple of season whether as the prince in Sleeping Beauty, as Benno or as the male dancer in the Kshchessinska pas de deux. Only Naghdi and he have manged to make the choreography for that  pas appear to be "a fragment of a long forgotten Petipa orientalist ballet" rather than an unending sequence of technical challenges to be surmounted or at least survived which is what it looked like with the other more senior casts who danced it. In fact Naghdi and Hay probably gave that section of choreography the best performance that it has received since Sibley and Dowell stopped dancing it. Having said that at the moment I think that Ball stands the best chance of promotion to principal at the end of the season and that Clarke and Bracewell, on recent showing ,will not be that far behind him. I suspect that their  general usefulness particularly the fact that they can partner a wide range of dancers and do not need special casting arrangements made for them will be the deciding factor which sees at least two of them promoted before Hay or Sambe are. I should like to be proved wrong but I don't see the necessary vacancies arising at present.

Edited by FLOSS
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1 hour ago, FLOSS said:

Promotions have an impact on a company's morale. While management should never promote internally if the dancers in question do not have the necessary potential and skills it can do company morale real damage if it only ever seems to  recruit dancers to its senior ranks who have no prior connection with the company. 

 

But Kevin O'Hare is on record (in his actions as well as his words) as believing in promoting from within.

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15 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

But Kevin O'Hare is on record (in his actions as well as his words) as believing in promoting from within.

 

I believe Floss was writing about the situation at the time when Morera was promoted.  In the quote below, I've highlighted the relevant section:

 

"Promotions have an impact on a company's morale. While management should never promote internally if the dancers in question do not have the necessary potential and skills it can do company morale real damage if it only ever seems to  recruit dancers to its senior ranks who have no prior connection with the company. I have read  that Morera's promotion was something  of a boost to the company's morale and that she was greeted with a round of applause from her colleagues when she went to class the following morning. Her colleagues came up to her saying that her promotion made all the hard work worthwhile. Her promotion came at a time when it must have seemed to many company members that the best way to secure appointment to the company's senior ranks was to have little connection with the company and little or  none with the school."

Edited by Bluebird
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Thanks, Bluebird. I'd been under the impression that it was later than C & P.  So, only a couple of years after Watson, then - all four, of course, being products of the Royal Ballet School.

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It took Laura Morera twelve  years to become a Principal whilst Cuthbertson was made a Principal six years after joining the Company; and come to think of it, it took about another decade before two more "products" of the Royal Ballet School were made Principal dancers. 

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And about 10 years for Watson, I think.  I'm not sure how long Pennefather was in the company before he was promoted - longer, I suspect, than Cuthbertson, although she did join early.  Hang on, he was being cast as Espada in Ross Stretton's first few months with the company, which may suggest that it was indeed longer.

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23 minutes ago, alison said:

And about 10 years for Watson, I think.  I'm not sure how long Pennefather was in the company before he was promoted - longer, I suspect, than Cuthbertson, although she did join early.  

 

From Rupert Pennefather's biography on the ROH website:

 

"English dancer Rupert Pennefather is a former Principal of The Royal Ballet. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into the Company in 1999. He was promoted to First Artist in 2004, Soloist in 2005, First Soloist in 2006 and Principal in 2008, following his role debut as Romeo"

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/people/rupert-pennefather

 

Edited to add relevant section from Ed Watson's biography:

"Watson was born in Bromley, South London. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into The Royal Ballet in 1994 and was promoted to Principal in 2005."

http://www.roh.org.uk/people/edward-watson

Edited by Bluebird
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4 hours ago, FLOSS said:

 at the moment I think that Ball stands the best chance of promotion to principal at the end of the season and that Clarke and Bracewell, on recent showing ,will not be that far behind him.

Well considered, Floss.

Do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts as to the prospects for RB females to be  promoted to Principal this year, or perhaps next?

As others have posted, some of the First Soloists  have been in that position for quite a few years and for whatever reason, though wonderful dancers,  may not  be realistically expecting (or even perhaps wanting) this  further step. However I'm thinking there could be potential  room for Calvert and/or Stix-Brunell, both fairly recent first soloists (2016), leaving in turn First Soloist  spaces for the likes of  Heap, Magri, O'Sullivan, Hinkis, or Kaneko.

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12 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts as to the prospects for RB females to be  promoted to Principal this year, or perhaps next?

 However I'm thinking there could be potential  room for Calvert and/or Stix-Brunell, both fairly recent first soloists (2016), leaving in turn First Soloist  spaces for the likes of  Heap, Magri, O'Sullivan, Hinkis, or Kaneko.

 

There are quite a few posts about female dancers "in the pipeline" - including the ones you mention - further up this thread. Have you seen that, I wonder?

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Imo there will be no female Principal promotion this Season.

 

Three female dancers have been promoted to the highest rank over the past two Seasons (and that's a lot considering it took about 10 years for the RB to appoint 3 new female Principals). There are now 8 female Principals:  if each run of a ballet has about 5 different Principal castings and each Principal needs to have an opportunity to dance 2 to 3 performances per ballet, this demands a run of 10-15 performances in total. If Mr O'Hare is to keep his Principals fully occupied (unless they go and guest with other companies during a Season) I think he has enough female Principals.

Edited by Xandra Newman
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Who would be Mr. O'Hare with such a talented group of dancers? Xandra's post raises the conundrum  of how to balance keeping your Principals fully occupied while maintaining motivation for those pursuing the 'top slots'. How many performance slots does the RB have nowadays  in comparison to other leading companies?   I think Floss's post about the pragmatics of being relatively injury free and  able to be partnered by most dancers is an important one. 

I found the comment in the Claire Calvert feature interesting regarding the position of a first soloist ( see other thread). Perhaps they do indeed have the best of both worlds - but reaching the 'top slot' is an understandable aspiration and titles matter to many. Just to throw a spanner into the works - do the categories of dancers work for the company or might there be other ways of rewarding dancers?    

Edited by Odyssey
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Another dimension to all this is how well equipped the RB (or any company) is to populate the various genres of its repertoire at Principal level. Some new pieces are led (wonderfully and appropriately) by Soloists and Artists. But what about the classics, MacMillan, Ashton, Balanchine etc? In those areas, some higher ranking dancers (the men in particular) have a busy time whereas others are rarely, if ever, used. I suspect that that will be the case in the coming season.

 

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I wanted to add to my final sentence of my previous post "rewarding dancers ".. with a fulfilling career". Financial matters are of course important, but I think the former is upmost in a dancer's mind especially once they have reached first soloist level.

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I think an important point to stress is that being in the Royal Ballet suggests strongly that you are in the top 2% or 3% of dancers in Britain.  Some of the posters above give the impression that reaching the rank of principal is the be all and end all of the measurement of a dancer's capabilities. I don't think that is the case and we should pause, sometimes, to reflect just how good and hard-working you have to be to get into and stay in the company in the first place. Not to be promoted to principal rank is neither an admission of lack of effort nor a lack of talent. Further, I would suggest that being promoted to principal, with the inevitable casting expectations that brings, can result, sometimes, in a reduction in the impact a dancer can make on stage. There are several examples I can think of in the Royal Ballet where this happened, where a soloist who sparkled, became seemingly, weighed down by the responsibility involved in a leading role in a full-length ballet. Some dancers feature best in a cameo and others only make their full and finest impact in a leading role. Deciding to whom this applies is one of the tests of the director and ballet staff. The audience can't always judge this in advance (alas...).

The other tricky point to forecast is to identify in advance those dancers who go on to be the stars (rather than simply the competent principal dancers) as I've never been able to work out who will, to use  a racehorse training metaphor, "train on" after a promising two year old career to the classics.

I'm reluctant to suggest any names (especially given everything I've just written) for a sparkling career, but if I were to suggest one name it would be James Hay as he seems to have real potential.

 

 

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Hello balletcoforum!

I personally don’t expect a female promotion to principal this season, although I think Matthew Ball has a great chance of becoming the newest male principal.

Stix Brunell is definitely a principal in waiting. Also Kaneko and magri.

Another interesting dancer is tierney heap. I thought she was wonderful as paulina and as myrtha this season, and very charismatic in the spanish dance in sl.

 

 

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