It’s an idyllic autumn day in leafy Richmond Park, London, where a grand Georgian hunting lodge houses the Royal Ballet school. Enter through the classical columns and it feels like a bubble away from the world. “I was on a video call with my son,” says the school’s artistic director, Iain Mackay. “He said, ‘Where are you? Hogwarts?!’” This is indeed a place of magic for children who come here, hoping to follow in the footsteps of generations of leading dancers. They touch the middle finger of Margot Fonteyn’s statue for luck as they pass, the bronze rubbed shiny by their superstition.
Getting a place at the school, founded in 1926 by the formidable Ninette de Valois, is a huge achievement. Two years ago, 40 students were accepted from more than 1,000 applications (all on merit – 90% are supported by bursaries). Mackay, 45, arrived last year and is making arguably the biggest change in the school’s history. Students have always come to board here at White Lodge at 11 – remember Billy Elliot’s London audition? – but the decision has been made to up the entry age to 13 (Year 9).
It might seem a small thing but it’s a big shift, made in order to manage the pressure of a notoriously rigorous, exacting and competitive career path. “The training is tough,” says Mackay, “and the mental health of our students comes first.” (There will still be a path for younger dancers on the Royal Ballet’s Associate Programme, training part-time at regional centres from the age of eight.) With this change, says Mackay, “we’ll make better artists”.
The decision came from studying hard data, says Mackay (the school employs a data analyst) and knowledge from sports science, where there’s been a lot of research into early specialisation. They crunched information on dancers’ trajectories and looked at burnout, injury and the ramifications of leaving home for boarding school at 11. “It’s not saying that what we’ve been doing is wrong,” says Mackay. “But can we do better for these young people?”
I watch a Year 9 class lined up at three barres in the middle of a large whitewashed studio. They are already incredibly poised and professional. The skill level, Mackay says, is astounding. “I would never have made it now,” jokes the former pupil who had a long career as a principal dancer at Birmingham Royal Ballet. Unlike the trope of the superstrict, verging-on-despotic, ballet master, the mood in this studio is calm, gentle. Teacher Kevin Emerton draws the students’ attention to the actions of specific muscles, and the detailed articulation of a foot brushing the floor. Even with the smallest movement, “you’re speaking to the audience,” he tells them.
It’s the start of term and while Mackay encourages everyone to take time off over the holidays, “to rest, play, climb trees”, you can tell, he notes, that they’ve all been on intensive summer courses. When you’re as obsessed as these students, there’s little else but ballet you want to do. It’s a hugely competitive business. Based on recent figures, only two-thirds of these students will probably join the Upper School (for ages 16-19, based in Covent Garden).
Previously, students were assessed each year, and those deemed not to have made enough progress, or whose bodies had developed in ways that weren’t suitable for ballet, were “assessed out”. You had to audition again to get into Year 10. So there was the potential for constant anxiety about your place. Now assessing out and Year 10 auditions have been dropped (although you still have to audition for the Upper School). Mackay talks about “identity foreclosure”, losing the thing you define yourself by: “At the age of 10, you’re told you’re going to be a ballet dancer, and by the age of 14, you’re not. What does that do to a young person? How do we mitigate that?”
The side-effect of starting later is that pubescent bodies will already have begun to grow and develop, so when the school selects students, there’ll be a better sense of who will have what it takes. “But even if we’re taking in a 13-year-old, they’re going to change and develop, and we will support that and give them the space. We’re looking for excellence and technique and artistry.”
Earlier this year, a former pupil, Ellen Elphick, who attended between 2009 and 2012, reached an out-of-court settlement with the Royal Ballet school over her development of an eating disorder (the school did not admit liability). Mackay takes his duty of care seriously. Along with changes in teaching style, students here have access to a psychologist, mental health nurse, physio and nutritionist. (Mackay says they’ve seen an increase in SEN diagnoses, and there’s additional support for that too.)
He wants to see a greater diversity of bodies in dance. “It used to be that if you were under 5ft 5in you wouldn’t be a prince,” he says of male dancers. “Why? Who said that?” In the studio, it’s clear that means diversity within a narrow field of what the industry, and the technique, requires. There are certain aspects of turnout, flexibility and instep that are mostly down to genetics. How do you square the desire for a diversity of bodies in ballet with the aesthetic and technical demands of the industry? “Excellence in classical ballet is not about conforming to outdated stereotypes of physical appearance,” says Mackay. “But about artistry, strength, musicality, and the ability to meet the considerable technical and physical demands of a professional career. When we talk about a diversity of bodies, our focus should be on supporting talented young people to thrive and excel on those terms, not on how they look.”
Does Mackay think 50 years from now we could have a different idea of what a ballet dancer looks like? “In five years we might have a different idea!” he says. “That’s the evolution of the art form.” It won’t be driven by the shape of a dancer, he says, but “the energy, connection and artistry that a dancer can bring”. Each dance company and director has their own preferences; it’s not Mackay’s job to second-guess that, he says. “But we can look for talent, potential and young people with fire in their eyes.”
