THE ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL. VINTAGE YEAR
Category: TheatreAfter the lean years, it seems we are to enjoy the rich years, or so I deduce from the fact that not only are there some notably talented young dancers among this year’s graduates from the Royal Ballet School, but the ones coming up behind them look fine too. In fact, instead of starting logically at the beginning, with the school matinee at Covent Garden on 7 July, let me begin at the end with the matinee I saw at the Richmond Theatre a fortnight later, given entirely by pupils of the lower school. This included two new works specially made for these pupils. Kate Flatt’s Pictures at an Exhibition (to the piano version of Mussorgsky’s music) was made for a cast from the two lowest forms. The choreography, tailored to their abilities, was not, I thought, very imaginative in its response to the music (too conventionally literal), but the kids did it with a nice alert manner. [...] Altogether, a jubilant occasion, and one that’promises good things to come not only for the Royal Ballet but for British ballet as a whole.
(Dance and Dancers, September, 1973)