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Tierney Heap retires from the Royal Ballet

Naomi M
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Richard LH

Richard LH

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Oh no! 

 

I had so hoped to see more of her wonderful performances. Another lovely ballerina who has been plagued by injury recently....

 

I wish her all the best in her new career.  There is a nice tribute from the ROH and Kevin O'Hare who confirms my own earlier description of Tierney in Corybantic Games as a "force of nature"....!

 

It would be lovely if she could be given some form of retirement tribute on the main stage. 

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alison

alison

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I suspect we'd all suspected this was going to happen, given that she's barely danced due to injury since being promoted to First Soloist.  I wish her all the best in the future - I'm sure she'll be successful in whatever she does.

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Dawnstar

Dawnstar

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I'm very sorry for her but I'm not that surprised. I was wondering recently how long ballet companies will keep on dancers while they're unable to dance due to injury & I suppose this answers the question. Am I right in thinking the only performances she has managed to do in the last 3+ years were a couple of Dances At A Gathering at the start of 2020? That's the only time I've seen her dance live since I started seeing the RB in autumn 2018.

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Dawnstar

Dawnstar

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43 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

Am I right in thinking the only performances she has managed to do in the last 3+ years were a couple of Dances At A Gathering at the start of 2020? That's the only time I've seen her dance live since I started seeing the RB in autumn 2018.

 

No, I'm wrong. She was in the only one of the four R&J casts I didn't see in October 2021.

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JNC

JNC

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Even though I don’t think I’ve seen Heap in her full force in a soloist role, I had marked her out as someone I would like to see more of and her Instagram post filled with clips of her talent and stage personality just makes this so deeply sad. I remember being disappointed when she didn’t dance Firebird in 2019 as I knew she’d be fantastic in the role. 

 

I feel often we are used to hearing stories of dancers (and athletes) overcoming injuries but the reality is the human body is often pushed to the extremes on a daily basis for these people and this makes me appreciate the dancers’ amazing talent all the more. 
 

I hope it is of some comfort to Heap all the lovely comments on her post, and wish her all the best in her future endeavours. Such a shame, she was clearly a rather special dancer with a strength and attack but wonderful technique that is rare. Leaves a big gap not just in the first soloist rank but in the company. 
 

Are any of her performances available on dvd, was she perhaps in the Scarlett Swan Lake as the Spanish dancer? Seems her Myrtha was also a sight to behold! 

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Jamesrhblack

Jamesrhblack

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She was also glorious in DGV. One of those dancers I really enjoyed watching and who I think had very particular qualities of strength and, as somebody also cited, glamour that could have illuminated a wide variety of roles. Hers was the Odette/Odile that I had been hoping to see, snd she would have been dazzling as The Firebird in another debut lost to injury.

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Rob S

Rob S

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9 hours ago, JNC said:

 

Are any of her performances available on dvd, was she perhaps in the Scarlett Swan Lake as the Spanish dancer? Seems her Myrtha was also a sight to behold! 


She’s in the Corybantic Games performance that features on the Bernstein celebration dvd/blu ray and she’s a harlot in the R&J Beyond Words film 

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Emeralds

Emeralds

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So sad to see this news on the company website. Always sad when injury forces a talented young dancer to cut short their career prematurely. Tierney was one of my favourite Lilac Fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty and Myrthas in Giselle- both difficult roles to cast successfully (more so than Aurora or Giselle) in the Royal Ballet because of their fiendishly difficult solos in the company’s productions. She was also outstanding in the contemporary works. My last time seeing her was in this season’s Romeo and Juliet- I had hoped we’d see more of her this season. A pity she isn’t continuing as a character artist instead - she had such strong dramatic skills and presence. She will be greatly missed onstage, but I wish her great success and fulfilment in her future endeavours.

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Jan McNulty

Jan McNulty

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On 01/05/2022 at 19:49, Emeralds said:

 A pity she isn’t continuing as a character artist instead - she had such strong dramatic skills and presence. She will be greatly missed onstage, but I wish her great success and fulfilment in her future endeavours.

 

Many years ago the son-in-law of a friend had a really nasty accident back-stage that cut short his dancing career.  He was so broken up by the end of his dancing career that he could not even bear to go into a theatre let alone think about performing character roles.

 

I am not saying that that is the case with Tierney Heap but perhaps she feels the need for a total break from performing.

 

I think James idea of Carabosse is good.  I've known dancers who have had long standing injury issues take this role and be truly awesome in it.  Monica Zamora ended her BRB career as Carabosse.

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Emeralds

Emeralds

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The only problem with the Carabosse idea (although she would be a superb Carabosse) is that it would be a very, very long wait- Sleeping Beauty isn’t scheduled for the rest of this year or next season.  I’m glad Tierney got promoted to First Soloist and portrayed Carmen, Lilac Fairy and Myrtha before retiring. I also enjoyed her lead Spanish Dance lady in Scarlett’s Swan Lake- she has such charisma, and she was also wonderful in the Act 1 waltz.  She will be missed on stage, but she will be great in her next career. 

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Guest oncnp

Guest oncnp

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16 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

The only problem with the Carabosse idea (although she would be a superb Carabosse) is that it would be a very, very long wait- Sleeping Beauty isn’t scheduled for the rest of this year or next season.  

Sleeping Beauty is scheduled for next season - Jan 2023 The Sleeping Beauty (roh.org.uk)

 

Still a long wait....

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Dawnstar

Dawnstar

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Could she be considered a bit too young to become a character artist? As her biography says she joined the RB in 2012 she's presumably still under 30. The current character artists seem to have mostly moved to be character artists in their later 30s/early 40s. Is there an (informal) minimum approximate age for character artists?

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Stevie

Stevie

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On 30/04/2022 at 00:14, JNC said:

Even though I don’t think I’ve seen Heap in her full force in a soloist role, I had marked her out as someone I would like to see more of and her Instagram post filled with clips of her talent and stage personality just makes this so deeply sad. I remember being disappointed when she didn’t dance Firebird in 2019 as I knew she’d be fantastic in the role. 

 

I feel often we are used to hearing stories of dancers (and athletes) overcoming injuries but the reality is the human body is often pushed to the extremes on a daily basis for these people and this makes me appreciate the dancers’ amazing talent all the more. 
 

I hope it is of some comfort to Heap all the lovely comments on her post, and wish her all the best in her future endeavours. Such a shame, she was clearly a rather special dancer with a strength and attack but wonderful technique that is rare. Leaves a big gap not just in the first soloist rank but in the company. 
 

Are any of her performances available on dvd, was she perhaps in the Scarlett Swan Lake as the Spanish dancer? Seems her Myrtha was also a sight to behold! 

She also appears as a Soloist on DVD and Blu-Ray in Corybantic Games

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MaddieRose

MaddieRose

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Tierney had her official farewell at the Royal Opera House today. Marcelino Sambé posted on his Instagram Story about it, and it seems a whole hoard of the company and staff were there to wish her the best for the future. 

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  • 3 months later...
annekh510

annekh510

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She's been interviewed in the latest edition of Claudia Dean's podcast. Exciting news in there, she's pregnant! Sadly she had a miscarriage in January (not her first), but then got pregnant after beginning discussions about leaving the Royal Ballet. Unfortunately her injury situation is pretty bad, she's still in a lot of pain and needs another operation on her foot. I wish her all the best with her pregnancy.

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