Dame Antoinette Sibley talks with Alastair Macaulay. Her wonderful mix of enthusiasm, appreciation and practicality typify the glorious mercurial talent that has beguiled a generation of dancers and public alike.
Sibley talks about her early aspirations, working with Sir Frederick Ashton and her career-defining partnership with Sir Anthony Dowell.
The episode is introduced by the dance critic and writer Alastair Macaulay in conversation with Natalie Steed.
Antoinette Sibley was born in Bromley, Kent, in 1939. She trained at the Arts Educational School in Chiswick before joining the Sadler’s Wells School in 1949 and the Royal Ballet Company in 1956. In 1959 she was coached by Tamara Karsavina, the great Russian Ballerina from the Imperial Russian Ballet and Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. Later that year she danced Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. In 1960, she became a principal dancer and in 1961 danced Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. 1964 saw a pivotal moment in her career: the creation of the role of Titania in Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream, alongside Sir Anthony Dowell’s Oberon. This was the start of one of the great partnerships in the history of the Royal Ballet, indeed of ballet, and one which lasted for nearly a quarter of a century.
Her professional stage career ran from the late 1950s until her late forties in 1988, with a few years of retirement in the early 1980s. During her career with the Royal Ballet, Sibley danced many principal roles in the classical and in the dramatic repertoires. She created major roles for Frederick Ashton, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Michael Corder and other choreographers. She danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov in the Hollywood film The Turning Point (1978). As President of the Royal Academy of Dance from 1991 to 2012 and as a coach at the Royal Ballet, her involvement in British Ballet continued into the 21st century.
She was appointed CBE for services to dance in 1973, and DBE in 1996.
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