Next Generation: The Royal Ballet School

This year, The Royal Ballet School make a welcome return to the Linbury Theatre, with a chance for the students to dance together with their peers after many months apart. The young dancers are drawn from their graduating and upper years of training, providing audiences an excellent opportunity to witness the work of some of the rising stars of ballet and dance. The Upper School, based in Covent Garden, is comprised of three year groups of students aged 16–19. The first year students will perform extracts from the much-loved, Royal Ballet favourite The Sleeping Beauty. The versatility of the students will be demonstrated through contemporary works, performed by those currently in the second year. They will perform Didy Veldman’s Is To Be and a new work created by Royal Ballet First Soloist, Valentino Zucchetti. The School’s third and graduating year will perform extracts from Ben Stevenson’s award-winning Three Preludes and Carlos Acosta’s Don Quixote. A new work, created on these students by Ashley Page gives them an opportunity to perform classical pas de deux with a contemporary twist. To finish, students will perform MacMillan’s joyful and ever-popular Elite Syncopations with music by Scott Joplin. The Royal Ballet School is one of the world’s greatest centres of classical ballet training which for generations has produced dancers and choreographers of international renown. The School’s mission is to nurture, train and educate exceptional young dancers for The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and other leading UK and international companies, and to inspire the future of classical ballet training.

Linbury Theatre