World Ballet Day, with live streams of performance and studio rehearsals with contributions from Ballet companies throughout the world, is a celebration of where we have come. The programme is in direct contrast to last year’s World Ballet Day.
Looking back, to 29 October 2020, the message was largely positive. It was to be ‘an exciting global celebration, bringing the dance community together as it faces the challenges of the Covid pandemic’. However, the effects of COVID-19 on dance employment was still very much being felt.
Fast forward to 19 October 2021 and although we have not reached the end of the pandemic, things do seem to be getting better. This World Ballet Day will include a streaming of the rehearsals for Wayne McGregor’s new ballet The Dante Project, ‘inspired by The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri – an epic poem in three parts recounting a pilgrim’s travels through hell, purgatory and heaven’. The Royal Ballet coverage includes interviews with Principal Dancers Sarah Lamb and Ed Watson. Also available will be an exert of Principal Dancer Marianela Nuñez, rehearsed by former Director of the Royal Ballet Dame Monica Mason.
Throughout COVID, as Chair of our Charity, she has seen first-hand the devastation the pandemic has had on artists, and no-one is happier than her that things are now looking up.
The organisers of World Ballet Day have asked people share, for their #jumpforjoy challenge, their favourite dance move. This is in celebration of the power of dance after such a challenging year. To express DPF’s joy for what’s hopefully to come for the dance industry, our team member Chloë, has volunteered to share her favourite joyful move.
There is no art without artists. We aim to help dance professionals when they need us and no-one is happier than us when they don’t. As the possibility to watch and enjoy art live in all its forms becomes increasingly accessible, we can all now understand what it would be like to have to live in a world without it. Reasons to be joyful.
Happy World Ballet Day!
