Matthew Ball
Born (1993-12-14) 14 December 1993
Liverpool, England
EducationThe Royal Ballet School
OccupationBallet dancer
Career
Current groupThe Royal Ballet

Matthew Ball (born 14 December 1993) is an English ballet dancer and is currently a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet.

Early life

Ball was born in December 1993 in Liverpool.[1][2] His mother is a GCSE dance teacher and his father works in arts education.[1] He started dancing at the age of 6, entered the Royal Ballet Lower School at 11 and moved to the Upper School at 16. He graduated in 2013, but was unable to take part in the graduation performance because of knee surgery.[3]

Career

External videos
video icon Romeo and Juliet – Balcony Pas de deux (The Royal Ballet), YouTube video
video icon The Sleeping Beauty – Bluebird pas de deux (Yasmine Naghdi, Matthew Ball; The Royal Ballet), YouTube video

Ball joined The Royal Ballet in the 2013/14 season, became a First Artist in 2015,[4] Soloist in 2016[5] and First Soloist in 2017.[6]

In March 2018, he was tasked with replacing an injured David Hallberg mid-show as Albrecht in Giselle, even though he had only danced the role once, and had never danced in a full-length ballet before with Natalia Osipova, the ballerina playing the title role.[1] Ball's performance was given an ovation by the audience and praised in the review by The Times.[7] Ball was promoted to principal dancer in July that year.[1] In December, he took time off from the Royal Ballet for 32 performances as the lead swan in Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake at the Sadler's Wells Theatre.[1][8]

He has danced lead roles in ballets such as Swan Lake, La Bayadère, Don Quixote, Ashton's Marguerite and Armand and McGregor's Infra.[1] He had less than two weeks to prepare his debut as Crown Prince Rudolf in MacMillan's Mayerling to replace another injured dancer.[1][3] He has also created roles in new works such as Wheeldon's Corybantic Games,[9] Marriott's The Unknown Soldier,[3] and Marston's The Cellist.[10]

In 2020, Ball was featured in the BBC documentary Men at the Barre.[2] Later that year, in the first series of performances since the Royal Opera House's closure due to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic, he and Mayara Magri performed a pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour, having learnt it in five days.[11]

Personal life

As of 2018, Ball lives in Clapham, London.[1]

Selected repertoire

Ball's repertoire with the Royal Ballet includes:[4]

Created roles

  • Albert de Belleroche in Strapless
  • The Cellist[12]
  • Connectome
  • Corybantic Games
  • The Illustrated 'Farewell'
  • Medusa
  • Multiverse
  • Obsidian Tear
  • The Unknown Soldier
  • Untouchable

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Byrne, Emma (4 December 2018). "Royal Ballet principal Matthew Ball: 'I was hungry to do Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake'". Evening Standard.
  2. 1 2 Winship, Lyndsey (26 May 2020). "One giant leap: meet the new generation of male ballet stars". The Guardian.
  3. 1 2 3 Craine, Debra (6 October 2018). "Swoon! Matthew Ball, the hot young hero at the Royal Ballet". The Times.
  4. 1 2 "Matthew Ball". Royal Opera House. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  5. ↑ "Royal Ballet: Promotions and joiners for the 2016/17 season". DanceTabs. 10 June 2016.
  6. ↑ "News – Royal Ballet Promotions, Joiners and Leavers, 2017/18 Season". DanceTabs. 9 July 2017.
  7. ↑ Craine, Debra (2 March 2018). "Dance review: Giselle at Covent Garden". The Times.
  8. ↑ "Matthew Ball on Swan Lake, 'dad dancing' and becoming the Royal Ballet's youngest star". The telegraph. 20 November 2018.
  9. ↑ Mackrell, Judith (16 March 2018). "Royal Ballet: Bernstein Centenary review – McGregor and Wheeldon at the top of their game". The Guardian.
  10. ↑ Winship, Lyndsey (18 February 2020). "The Cellist review – a joyfully giddy tribute to Jacqueline du Pré". The Guardian.
  11. ↑ Parry, Jann (1 July 2020). "Royal Opera House/Royal Ballet – Live from Covent Garden: Third Concert (27 June)". DanceTabs.
  12. ↑ Monahan, Mark (18 February 2020). "The Cellist, Dances at a Gathering, Royal Ballet, review: a heartbreaking love letter to Jacqueline du Pré and the magic of music". The Telegraph.
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