A Quote by Clive Barnes

One of the few things in dance to match the Royal Ballet's curtain calls is the Royal Ballet's dancing. — © Clive Barnes
One of the few things in dance to match the Royal Ballet's curtain calls is the Royal Ballet's dancing.
I was probably around 14 or 15 when I became really conscious of those girls who were going on to the Royal Ballet school, and that I was not Royal Ballet school material, not by a long stretch.
Dancing is a tough career, but I'm glad I spent it at the Royal Ballet.
I had classical training at London's Royal Ballet School, and my first job was with the Semperoper Dresden ballet company in Germany.
Fonteyn was our first proper British ballerina, and from the moment I started dancing, her image engulfed me. In my first year at the Royal Ballet School, Margot's statue was outside my dormitory. Like generations of budding ballet dancers before me, I used to touch her middle finger for luck.
I joined the Royal Ballet School when I was 13. Before then, I'd done ballet twice a week after school. The rest of my class had started aged 11, so I'd missed two years and was really far behind.
In the Royal Ballet Company, there was a Japanese principal dancer, and onstage and in ballet, they have colorblind castings - so I did see Asian dancers, and they were always my favorite. When you have someone who looks like you, it's something you can kind of grab onto, and it makes you feel better about your place in the world.
I have learned a great deal from the theatrical side of Covent Garden. The Paris Opera Ballet is more concerned with technique. It's perfect. It's beautiful. It's well done. But it lacks the theatrical tradition that is so important in England. At the Royal Ballet, absolutely everyone on stage seems to be caught up in the plot.
When I left The Royal Ballet, I didn't have anybody to talk to.
I do take class because I still dance, and yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time.
Capoeira was designed to look like a dance, and it's actually an incredibly effective means of fighting. Fighting is dancing. Look at a great boxing match, and it's a dancing. That's what's great about the choreography that goes on here. It's a delicate ballet with a fist in the face.
I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.
I've got used to the fact -? just about -? that whatever I do is going to be compared to the other Beatles. If I took up ballet dancing, my ballet dancing would be compared with Paul (McCartney)'s bowling.
Dancing for the length of time that I did, it centered me in such a way to be really in tune with my body, and I just feel like I'm physically able to do things because of my ballet background. Without ballet, I don't think I'd look graceful at all on screen.
I was afraid when I came to the Royal Ballet that it would be easy to have everyone walking all over me if I didn't stick up for myself.
I actually hated dancing. My mum used to have to bribe me to go by buying me things. A year before I stopped going, I was going to go for an audition with the Royal Ballet. It turned out I was a year too young. Because I was tall, they thought I was older. But before I had the chance to go back, I quit.
I loved being at the Royal Ballet. Those choreographers, MacMillan and Ashton, they knew how to translate complicated life into choreography.
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