160 photos of Royal Ballet dancers rehearsing now online
When I went to cover Mara Galeazzi‘s farewell gala with Royal Ballet colleagues in Verona last month, I took my camera for a couple of backstage shots. Well I ended up taking hundreds of photos during the rehearsals, and 160 of these are now viewable on Flickr.
Dodging the mosquitoes that arrived with dusk, I managed to capture something of those emotional couple of days, as Mara got ready to hang up her pointe shoes for (almost?) the last time.
But never say never…
Photo: Mara Galeazzi & Edward Watson rehearsing MacMillan’s Manon
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
These are utterly ravishing. Thank you for putting them up.
I’m also using the moment to say thank you for the La Scala/ Manon/ Sylvie Guillem videos, which I’ve watched numerous times, what a treat.
Thank you so much for saying thank you; it’s greatly appreciated!