Why Dance Matters

Jakob Wheway Hughes was gold medallist at the Royal Academy of Dance’s Margot Fonteyn International Ballet Competition 2023. The Fonteyn took place at His Majesty’s Theatre in London, the opulent home of Phantom of the Opera. Jakob performed a new solo and a bravura classical variation, and seemed strikingly at ease on stage, communicating his dance to the packed audience. It was no surprise that...

Drew McOnie is a British choreographer and theatre director, and one of the busiest people in show business. He danced with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures company, but soon wanted to run the show. His work hits a sweet spot between warm and witty, always with a kinetic fizz: whether in the West End, on Broadway or in ballet. His new version of the Nutcracker gives the festive favourite a sweetly...

Jennifer White is a choreographer who occupies a unique sweet spot between RAD ballet, contemporary dance, Kylie and the year’s hottest movie: she is the choreographer of Barbie. Greta Gerwig’s film includes delirious dance sequences led by Margot Robbie’s Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. Those scenes chart the film’s trajectory – in Barbie, dance really does matter. Jennifer has also choreographed...

The RAD’s flagship event, the Margot Fonteyn International Ballet Competition, gives young dancers a chance to learn from top professionals. This year’s coaches include Endalyn T Outlaw – dancer, educator, choreographer and Dean of the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina. Endalyn’s career is incredibly varied – she performed with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and in the original Broa...

‘Living in the movement’ is the motto of Australian Royal Academy of Dance teacher Mitchell Rayner. Enjoying and fully inhabiting your movement is a fantastic goal for anyone in dance. Mitchell came to dance training relatively late but progressed quickly, joining the Australian Ballet. He retired from the company in 2016, and re-trained as a dance teacher with the RAD, taking his philosophy of li...

Alice Oseman’s work stops hearts – in a good way. They capture the delirious rush of first love, above all in the Heartstopper series – online, in books, and onscreen – which has become a sensation. Heartstopper is also all about young people finding ways to express themselves, creatively and emotionally, becoming the people they want to be – ideas that resonate with the RAD’s own ethos. But also:...

Wayne McGregor, one of the world’s leading choreographers, is an ideas man who makes abstract thought into thrillingly visceral dance. His collaborations are prodigious – from his own contemporary dancers to the world’s great ballet companies, and in film, fashion and more. He discusses his latest premiere for the Royal Ballet, his programme for the Venice Biennale and his game changing collaborat...

Why Dance Matters often meets people whose interest in dance sits alongside expertise in a completely different field. Merritt Moore’s talents seem especially unlikely: she’s a Harvard-trained physicist who dances with robots. She is also a professional ballerina, performing at the highest level (most recently with Boston Ballet). Can the rigours of the ballet studio meet the intellectual challeng...

The new season of Why Dance Matters opens with one of the great ballet princes – David Hallberg, star dancer and now artistic director of Australian Ballet . The epitome of classical elegance, in his memoir, A Body of Work , he writes feelingly about being a boy who dances, and a dancer who yearns for perfection, even when at the height of a career as a principal at both American Ballet Theatre an...

In an exciting bonus episode of Why Dance Matters, we meet the choreographer Dame Arlene Phillips as she receives a special honour at the Olivier Awards, marking a career packed with achievement. A dance legend, Arlene made her name with her racy dance troupe Hot Gossip in the 1970s, before becoming a major player in musical theatre, starting with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express. As she ap...

Giles Terera is no ordinary actor. He won an Olivier Award as Aaron Burr in the UK premiere of the all-conquering musical Hamilton, writing a book about his creative journey. Last year, he played two very different roles at the National Theatre: as Shakespeare’s tragic hero Othello, and as a designer in 1930s Harlem in Blues for an Alabama Sky. He also writes songs and his play, The Meaning of Zon...

Francesca Harper, Artistic Director of Ailey II, is back where it all began. She trained at the Alvin Ailey School, where her mother, Denise Jefferson, was director for 26 years. She has also choreographed for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and now leads Ailey II, which fosters new generations of shining talent and will visit the UK later this year. Francesca has enjoyed an astonishingly vari...

Ana Maria Campos is a Royal Academy of Dance teacher from Brazil. She has travelled widely and lived in several different countries – dance and dance teaching are wonderfully portable skills. As an RAD examiner, she also visits dance schools all over the world – how does she calm the nerves of young dancers and help them give their best? And as someone who has dedicated their career to dance and h...

Raphael Ng began his career in the ballet studio – only to leap effortlessly into high finance. Based in Singapore, Raphael threw himself into ballet, contemporary and Chinese dance, taking part in international shows and competitions – but when exploring how to manage his money as a student, he caught an excitement for the financial world. Now a fund manager, he discusses the invaluable transferr...

In this episode, we visit the Royal Academy of Dance’s global headquarters in London to meet its new chief executive – the ebullient Tim Arthur. Tim’s previous experience is dizzyingly varied – he arrives at the RAD via senior roles in theatre, publishing and finance, working with companies like Time Out and Virgin Money. Why did a dance organisation feel like the logical next step? We also explor...

Tiler Peck, one of the world’s great ballerinas, opens the new season of Why Dance Matters. The California-born dancer is a reigning star at New York City Ballet, where she has been a principal since 2009, and is also a director and choreographer in her own right. Feted for her innate musicality and formidable work ethic, audiences respond to her warmth and enthusiasm. She commissions her own prog...

Benjamin Zephaniah   In the last episode of this series of Why Dance Matters , we meet a poet – the resonant, rousing, heart-stopping Benjamin Zephaniah. Benjamin’s specific dance connection is that he’s recorded the narration for Rambert’s acclaimed new stage production based on Peaky Blinders , the cult period crime drama. As a celebrated performance poet, he’s used to making language, voic...

Why Dance Matters has benefited hugely from encouragement and inspiration from Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel in the Faculty of Education at the Royal Academy of Dance, so it’s high time she was a guest. Born in Malta, Kathrina has been with the Faculty since 2005, and her books include Princess Poutiatine and the Art of Ballet in Malta and co-editing The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet , a brilli...

Ballroom culture was celebrated in the tv drama Pose , set in New York during the 1980s and 90s. It originated in Harlem, where queer people of colour came together in act of self-expression and resistance, and is now international. A key figure in London’s scene is DJ, community activist and impresario, Jay Jay Revlon. Jay Jay has serious dance training, and found a home for his talents in ballro...

Unusually, Charlotte Edmonds began her career as a professional choreographer while still a teenager. The RAD spotted her talent for making dance when she was just 18: she was Commissioned Choreographer for the RAD’s Genée International Ballet Competition (now named The Fonteyn) in 2015, and also became The Royal Ballet’s inaugural young choreographer. She continues to navigate a varied freelance...

The Savannah Bananas is not what you might expect from a US baseball team; players break off to twerk, or do a TikTok challenge, and the Entertainment Director, Zack Frongillo, is a trained classical dancer. We love seeing dance sneak into unexpected places. In this episode, we hear from Zack who tells us how the Savannah Bananas in Georgia are making a double play with dance and baseball, and bri...

May you live in interesting times may be an ancient curse, but Monica Mason has voyaged through some very interesting times and places. She spent most of her career at The Royal Ballet, eventually as its artistic director – but was born in South Africa, moving to London in the 1950s to ignite her astonishing career. She later toured through segregated America, behind the Iron Curtain, and to Cuba...

The opening guest in the new series of Why Dance Matters is a star among contemporary dance artists. Akram Khan is a dancer, choreographer, director and dreamer, whose work has shaped the international landscape of dance. He came to attention early as a virtuoso in kathak, the Indian classical dance form, and at 13 appeared in Peter Brook’s landmark Mahabharata . His own work explores kathak, cont...

In this episode, we meet dance royalty – Dame Darcey Bussell, who is President of the Royal Academy of Dance. Darcey has been a warm and inspiring figurehead for dance as an artform and for the RAD in particular – whether it’s through her glittering career as a principal ballerina with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, or as a broadcaster, or as a judge for seven years on Strictly Come Dancing ....

Harper Watters is a highly accomplished dancer with Houston Ballet – but that’s not what got him noticed on social media. The combination of a quick-running treadmill in the gym and a pair of towering pink heels made Harper something of a sensation. His subsequent eye-catching films have won him a serious following on social media and given him a platform to discuss race, sexuality and dance. Harp...