Royal Ballet and Opera bets on the future of dance and opera with FUTUREWORKS and NOW
Royal Ballet and Opera has announced two new programmes that rethink how the organisation creates new work – moving away from one-off commissions and towards something more sustained: long-term investment in the choreographers, composers and directors who will shape ballet and opera over the coming decades.
The ballet part of the initiative is FUTUREWORKS, a five-year programme for choreographers working within the classical idiom, run in partnership with London City Ballet. Wayne McGregor and Pam Tanowitz will lead the first residential workshops, with Christopher Wheeldon also signed up as a choreographic mentor. The opera part is NOW (New Opera Works), a long-term strategy for commissioning and developing new operas, with dedicated research and development support.
What makes FUTUREWORKS interesting is less the names than the infrastructure behind them. Emma Southworth, Director of Creative Programming and Strategy of The Royal Ballet, put her finger on the problem the programme is trying to solve:
Choreographers fundamentally need space, time and dancers, and very few ballet companies can offer these consistently.
With the Linbury Theatre, the Main Stage, the Clore Studio and growing digital capacity at its disposal, RBO is unusually well placed to provide all three. Southworth described the involvement of McGregor, Tanowitz and Wheeldon as a powerful endorsement of the company’s ambition, and the partnership with London City Ballet as part of what positions RBO to build a world-leading environment for choreographic innovation in classical ballet.
Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet, framed the launch as a next step rather than a departure, pointing to platforms the company already runs to encourage creative talent and calling new work an essential ingredient in the artistic identity of any dance company. For London City Ballet – a young company itself – the appeal is rather different. Artistic Director Christopher Marney called playing a part in a rising artist’s journey a profound privilege, and spoke of combining resources with RBO to give emerging dance-makers a genuine launchpad.
Oliver Mears, Director of Opera at The Royal Opera, placed NOW within a longer-standing commitment:
Today’s announcement is rooted in The Royal Opera’s overarching commitment to new work – the lifeblood of our art form.
Netia Jones, Associate Director of The Royal Opera, filled in the practical detail: commissioning at multiple scales, dedicated R&D support, and real opportunities for established artists and newer practitioners alike, all with a view to investing in the next generation of operatic voices.
The announcement drew a welcome from Arts Minister Ruth Mackenzie, who congratulated RBO on giving composers, choreographers and directors room to take creative risks, describing the two programmes as an essential way of ensuring that the classic works of tomorrow are made by the emerging stars of today.
Whether they deliver on that is, of course, a question for the next five years. But the underlying shift is worth noting: an institution best known as a guardian of the repertoire is making a structural commitment to what comes next.
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 Italian ballerina 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.
Enjoyed reading this- Without a program like Futureworks, dance becomes stagnant and then withers. It is important to maintain the classics but also to encourage new works and choreographers.