Darcey Bussell

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Darcey Bussell bigraphy, stories - Ballet dancer

Darcey Bussell : biography

27 April 1969 –

Darcey Andrea Bussell CBE (born Darcey Andrea CrittleValerie Lawson, "Turning Point", Good Weekend magazine, 20 September 2008 on 27 April 1969) is an English retired ballerina. Trained at the Arts Educational School and the Royal Ballet School, she was later employed by the Royal Ballet, where she became principal dancer, and acclaimed as one of the greatest British ballerinas of all time. She has performed as a guest artist with leading international ballet companies and, since retiring from professional ballet in 2007, has continued to be very active in the world of dance. In 2012 Bussell replaced Alesha Dixon on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing judging panel. In 2012 she also became the President of the Royal Academy of Dance. She is the Patron of the Sydney Dance Company and President of the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s fund raising appeal. She is a patron of the International Dance Teachers Association, Ceccetti UK, Ceccetti Australia, Dance Teachers Benevolent Fund UK, New English Ballet Theatre, the New Zealand School of Dance and the Henry Spink Foundation. She is on the board of the Margot Fonteyn Foundation.

Biography

Darcey Bussell was born in London to businessman John Crittle and his English wife Andrea Williams. Sunday Times – 23 December 2007 After the couple divorced when Bussell was three, her mother remarried and Bussell was adopted by her mother’s new husband, Australian dentist Philip Bussell. The family spent some time in Australia, where Bussell attended school before they returned to London for Bussell to be educated at Fox Primary School.

Dancing career

Darcey Bussell began her professional training at the Arts Educational School, a specialist dance and musical theatre school in London. At the age of 13, she moved to continue her studies at the Royal Ballet Lower School, a leading international ballet school based at White Lodge, Richmond Park. At 16, she progressed to the Royal Ballet Upper School in Baron’s Court, before graduating into the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in 1987. Whilst studying at the Royal Ballet School, she appeared in a number of school productions, including performances at the Royal Opera House.

While Bussell was still at school, the choreographer Kenneth MacMillan had noticed her, and in 1988 he gave her the leading role in his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas to Benjamin Britten’s music, which led to her moving to the Royal Ballet. A year later, in December 1989 when aged 20, she was promoted to principal dancer, at the time the youngest principal of the Royal Ballet.

Bussell performed all the major classical roles numerous times throughout her career, including Masha in Winter Dreams and Princess Rose in The Prince of the Pagodas, both choreographed by MacMillan, as well as Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Nikiya and Gamzatti in La Bayadère, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Manon in Manon, and Giselle in Giselle. In Sleeping Beauty alone, she performed in four different productions, all at the Royal Opera House.

She made several guest appearances with the New York City Ballet, starting in June 1993, with a performance of the pas de deux from Agon.

She also guested with The Kirov ballet, Paris Opera ballet, Hamburg ballet and the Australian ballet.

She danced the première of Sylvia by Léo Delibes choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden on 4 November 2004.

In 2006 she announced her retirement as a principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, though stayed with the company as "guest principal artist".

She retired from ballet on 8 June 2007 with a performance of MacMillan’s "Song of the Earth" (music Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde). It was performed at the Royal Opera House in London, and at the end of the piece she received a standing ovation lasting over 8 minutes. It was also broadcast live on BBC Two. – telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 10 December 2007.