Birmingham Royal Ballet Advertises for Soloist and Principal Dancers

[Richard LH]

1 hour ago, Peony said:

I would have thought an open recruitment process was a step forward for ballet companies. What is the harm in it? How can you know you have the best dancers and are promoting the best if you don’t compare to outside applicants? 

I am guessing here, as I really  know little about how ballet companies work, but I would imagine that Directors DO keep a watching brief on the top dancers, and rising stars, in other Companies, by way of comparison and potential interest, but in a discrete way. They can judge their talents from their public performances, at the very least. It seems that the unusual thing here is the open, public advertisement for applications for an unspecified number of soloists and principals. 

Perhaps a suitable analogy would be top class football, and the suprise that would ensue if say the manager of Man Utd put out a public advert asking for applications for players to join the first team squad.

The potential harm may be the sense of distrust an apparently unprecedented move like this could generate within the existing squad/ballet company, where players/dancers and their managerial staff need to work so closely together to produce excellent results. 

[Peony]

Perhaps with covid disruption it’s been much more difficult to keep an eye on other companies? It’s quite a large pool of potential employees, particularly at soloist level. So much has changed that perhaps it’s just a shot to see if someone unexpected might apply. It seems like most of the companies do employ outside rather than only promoting from within, it just always seems to be shrouded in great secrecy (From an outside perspective anyway!). I would hope that current employees were notified of the ad before it went out publicly. 

[Guest oncnp]

18 minutes ago, Peony said:

Perhaps with covid disruption it’s been much more difficult to keep an eye on other companies? It’s quite a large pool of potential employees, particularly at soloist level. So much has changed that perhaps it’s just a shot to see if someone unexpected might apply. It seems like most of the companies do employ outside rather than only promoting from within, it just always seems to be shrouded in great secrecy (From an outside perspective anyway!). I would hope that current employees were notified of the ad before it went out publicly. 

 

Good point.  I recall Kevin O'Hare taking pains to deny he had poached a Lead Principal from the ENB some years back. Perhaps this is a discreet way of judging interest.  But like you I would hope the company had been informed first. 

[rowan]

Perhaps it is unusual for BRB. I wouldn’t know. However, it seems to me that a lot of advertised ballet jobs advertise for soloists and principals. I did a quick, completely non-scientific scout of ballet auditions, and seven out of eleven adverts specifically say they are looking for soloists and/or principals as well as corps, and no doubt there’s a lot going on behind the scenes too, even for ads that don’t specifically state that. At the large national company my adult dancer child works for, dancers from outside the company are hired at soloist and principal level as well as corps. Whether those dancers were previously working at soloist/principal level at their previous companies I don’t know. However, isn’t this how dancers get on? They move from company to company to progress or find a company that suits them better. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by rowan
Clarification

[capybara]

I suppose that the reason why eyebrows are being raised on this forum is that the advertisement is a ‘first’ for BRB and BRB fans feel an understandable sense of loyalty to the dancers who are already there.

Dancers who come into the RB from outside approach the Director or, in some cases where they are not known to him, request to take class in the hope of being ‘seen’.  Some ‘approaches’ are taken forward but there are also refusals, I believe   (hearsay, though).

[Pas de Quatre]

Historically in many ballet companies, when the AD changes so do many of the dancers at all levels. Some decide to retire, others look for new companies and if the AD is moving elsewhere they may be invited to go too. Or quite simply some are told their contract will not be renewed.