English National Ballet at 75 performs for The Queen at Buckingham Palace
English National Ballet performed for the Company’s Royal Patron, Her Majesty Queen Camilla, at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday 12 November, at a special event to celebrate the company’s 75th anniversary. Queen Camilla became Royal Patron of English National Ballet last year.
During an afternoon reception held in Buckingham Palace’s Centre Room, Queen Camilla met ENB’s Chair, Sir Rupert Gavin, the company’s Artistic Director, Aaron S. Watkin, Dame Arlene Phillips DBE, Angela Rippon CBE, and longstanding supporters of the Company and representatives from the Company’s Dance for Parkinson’s and ENBYouthCo programmes.
Queen Camilla and guests watched a performance of Fokine’s The Dying Swan by Lead Principal Sangeun Lee, accompanied by cellist Gerry Stevens and harpist Isabel Frayling-Cork of English National Ballet Philharmonic.
Watkin said:
It was truly an honour to be invited to Buckingham Palace to perform for Her Majesty Queen Camilla. The afternoon was a wonderful celebration of English National Ballet’s 75th anniversary, and Sangeun Lee’s moving performance of The Dying Swan showed just how expressive and beautiful ballet can be.
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.
