“I noticed that when I went to children’s parties, when the music starts the boys aged four to six were always first up, jumping up saying ‘look at me’. And then all of a sudden… they don’t dance anymore. Why is that?”
When former principal dancer with Birmingham Royal Ballet, Iain Mackay, was appointed artistic director of the Royal Ballet School, he said:
My vision is that the School continues to be an environment where students can thrive, artistically, physically, and mentally, emerging prepared to lead the global dance community as artists, displaying excellence and resilience. I’m committed to upholding and enhancing The Royal Ballet School’s rich heritage, while looking firmly to the future.
He took up his post in September 2024 and has given his first interview since then to The Times. David Sanderson’s article covers Mackay’s views on body-shaming, bigger ballerinas, and gender pairings and gender imbalance in dance.
Gender imbalance
Mackay’s path to ballet was not an obvious one – the grandson of a Scottish miner who grew up in Kilsyth, a town that’s a 30-minute drive northeast of Glasgow, and 650 kilometres from the Royal Ballet School. He kept his dance training a secret from his school friends.
When I was 15, I wasn’t watching ballet, I was watching Rangers football club.
He says that he wants to help children discover that ballet can…
…shape their lives and lead them onto something they never knew existed.
Mackay’s supportive parents let him attend the Royal Ballet School when he was 16, but gender imbalance in dance means that eight times more girls than boys apply to get into the Royal Ballet School.
I took my son along to ballet when he was seven or eight and it was just a sea of pink. And he said no. I said why. He says: ‘I’m the only boy.’ There is that stigma, that barrier.
Bodies
Audiences want dancers they can relate to.” Bigger ballerinas? “Absolutely… I think this is already happening. They have been required to be more physical than ever before. Dancers that can tell a story, but dancers that are incredibly capable technically.
We are artists and dancers but we train like athletes… Wanting to be so good can in itself be really hard. The environment has always been tough. We can’t get away [from the fact] that ballet training is hard.
You are burning more calories than you are able to consume but that doesn’t mean there is always an issue… We have introduced refuelling stations to try and break that stigma in the art form. We have also reduced the amount of hours they dance, but they still need to refuel. They are stronger and healthier [so] it means they are going to be better.
Classical ballet is the most beautiful art form but it is hard, it is tough. There is a skill acquisition in terms of what you have to be able to do and the positions. But like any athlete; unless you are fuelled properly, unless you are strong, unless you are protecting your bones and your ligaments – that is the only way to make a dancer.”
Gender pairings
There is lots of exciting stuff happening. The companies are really pushing the boundaries. I’d say, though, there’s still room for the big [traditional] narratives [to experiment].
Same-sex partnering – male, male; female, female. And it is an opportunity to create new audiences. The classics are beautiful – you ask a lot of our young dancers and a lot of them would say: ‘I would love to do the lead in Swan Lake.’ But there are all these new works being created and we have to prepare our dancers to go into organisations around the world.
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.
Disgusting. This woke rubbish is the reason I won’t patronize the arts anymore.