The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) has announced that Alexander Campbell will leave The Royal Ballet to take up its Artistic Directorship. He will begin his tenure in April 2024, succeeding the RAD’s previous Artistic Director Gerard Charles who retired last year.
Campbell is Australian and trained locally at Academy Ballet in Sydney completing all RAD examinations up to Advanced 2 and winning a silver medal at the Academy’s 2003 Genée International Ballet Competition (now The Fonteyn) which was held in Birmingham. It was through this experience that he was introduced to Birmingham Royal Ballet, the company he joined upon graduating from The Royal Ballet School in 2005. In 2011 he joined the Royal Ballet as a Soloist and was promoted to First Soloist in 2012, then Principal in 2016.
He says,
The RAD was formative in my training and I believe has the power to shape how people interact with ballet and dance. I am motivated and excited to play a part in how we develop and offer these exceptional and positive interactions, not only for our current and future members and students but also for society in general.
He also runs Alexander Campbell Productions, which has created projects for theatre and dance including Sleepwalker, featuring the differently-abled dancer Joseph Powell-Main, and The Limit in association with The Royal Ballet at the Linbury Theatre last year, where he performed with his fellow Royal Ballet Principal, Francesca Hayward.
Campbell’s last performance with The Royal Ballet will be as Des Grieux in Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon on Friday 8 March 2024.
Dame Darcey Bussell, who is the President of the RAD, says,
As a friend of Alexander, I’m thrilled by this news. He has such great passion for dance, and I look forward to seeing all the exciting developments his time at the RAD will bring.
At 38, he is leaving his career at the top.
I have been fortunate to enjoy a wonderful career performing with The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet with experiences and friendships I will cherish for a lifetime. My thanks to Kevin O’Hare for supporting me in this next step in my career and I can’t wait to get started.
O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, said,
Alexander has been a key member of both our Royal companies for almost two decades. His passion for dance has always been obvious from across his many stage performances in a vibrant and diverse range of roles, to his great aptitude in more recent years as a presenter for World Ballet Day and his concept production for The Limit. I know he will continue as a wonderful advocate for dance in this exciting new role and I look forward to our continued working relationship providing more people with positive experiences of our powerful artform.
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.