Ballet star Matthew Ball talks stressful roles and bullying on Instagram: ‘I don’t feel precious about my body’ | Dance

IIn the silence of an expensive hotel bar just down the road from the Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden, London, Matthew Ball orders mint tea. I drink white wine. Paul’s body is clearly more temple-like than mine, although you don’t need to know our drink orders to see that: he has an effortlessly straight-backed posture, muscular arms under a white T-shirt. On stage, ballet dancers can seem like great gods and goddesses, but often they are actually minor. Not so with Paul, whose tall stature is part of the reason he is in such high demand for princely and partner roles. With his beautiful features, strong facial angles, and those piercing eyes, there’s a little bit of Robert Pattinson about him. Is he romantic and romantic in his roles on stage? certainly. Tortured? We will come to that.

At 31 years old, Paul is at the peak of a career that seems to have gone very smoothly so far. Growing up in Liverpool, he didn’t get much attention for being interested in ballet as a child (the worst comments came from another girl in his ballet class). He joined the Royal Ballet School at the age of 11, graduated straight from the Royal Ballet and was promoted every year, reaching the highest rank of principal in 2018. He loved to sink his teeth into meaty dramatic roles, especially the psychological turmoil of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballets: the suicidal Crown Prince Rudolf in Mayerling or the doomed poet de Grieux in Manon. As a guest star, he was on fire as The Stranger in Matthew Bourne’s famous Swan Lake, and made a virtuoso cameo, twirling in a Paul Smith suit, in the recent ballet Quadrophenia. In addition, he dances in concerts all over the world, often with his Brazilian friend and fellow Royal Ballet director Maiara Magri. He groaned at me as he told you that Tatler called them “swanky ballets.” “They really went to town about it,” he shakes his head sheepishly, “golden balls!”

Paul’s next starring role is himself, in the event “An Evening With…” from the producers of Essential Dance, a new live series that aims to provide behind-the-scenes insights into the mysteries of the dancer’s craft. Paul will “walk and talk” through one of his roles, demonstrating how his mind buzzes as he performs, especially in the intense and emotionally complex roles he prefers. Against type, he recently made his debut as Cola in Frederick Ashton’s La fille Mal Gardée, a sunny 1960 romantic ballet with a leading lady. Kula jumps around wearing bright yellow tights. “I was like, ‘I’m not used to this. Where’s my anxiety? What am I going to do with my eyebrows?’ He frowns and raises his brow.

Even show ballet is a mind game, he says. Don Quixote is one of the most technically difficult characters. “Your lungs burn, your legs feel heavy, but it’s actually nervous exhaustion.” The first entrance is explosive, it doesn’t hit 60. “It’s like a bolt of lightning coming at you, and then you come down and you’re in the wings and… wow,” he sounds startled. But it’s a fast start to a marathon. The biggest moment in ballet is often the third act, the climax of the show, so you need to reach your climax around 10pm. “And your legs are like, ‘I’m not sure I can do that.'”

What happens after the show, how do you feel when it’s over? “It feels so good,” he says. “But because I try to squeeze all the juice out of it, and I get lost in the character emotionally, I often feel embarrassed afterwards. Meaning: What have you shown? After Mayerling, I always say: Oh my God, what are people supposed to think? Wow, you’ve gone to a place that you probably haven’t even revealed to yourself.”

On a personal level, Paul is thoughtful, kind, and quick to laugh at himself. But choreographer Paul Lightfoot once said: “There is a kind of suffering in it.” Is there? “I’m very active in the studio, in general, but I have a dark side, and when I go in there I’m very internal and just need to process things. I kind of enjoy the negativity sometimes. I’ve always felt like the negativity was a catalyst for positive change.”

For example, he didn’t do well in competitions at school, he says, “and that’s what really made me, like…” He looks up the word and bursts out laughing when he finds it, “Revenge!” He was motivated to prove he could do it. This persistence must have come from somewhere. “I don’t know. My parents were never overbearing about these things,” Paul says, but they were encouraging: his mother taught high school dance, and his father trained teachers using drama. “My father is a huge exhibitionist. He likes to steal into the room from time to time.” There may have been a streak of competition, he says, as the youngest of four siblings. “My brother was three years older than me, so I was hanging on trying to catch up with him.”

By nine or ten, Paul was seriously dancing. His mother would show him videos of Nureyev and he was fascinated by the “mystery” of these legendary dancers. He remembers having a “weird moment” thinking about what would happen if he didn’t go to ballet school. “I remember feeling like I was not going to be okay,” he says. But he got there, and the clincher was reading the book “Mao’s Last Dancer,” about the dancer Li Cunxin, who was chosen from his poor village in Communist China for intensive training in Beijing. “You flipped a switch, made me a little obsessed.”

In the book, Lee tells how he tied sandbags to his ankles and jumped up and down the stairs to improve his strength. “I wasn’t having any hardship, but people were making fun of me because I was running up and down the fire escape while everyone else was sitting on the ground,” Paul says, realizing how easily his life compared to mine. He believes that there is no growth without pushing yourself beyond what is comfortable, and he is ready for that. “I really enjoy flirting with that edge.”

Next challenge: creating his own choreography. It is common to hear choreographers say that they want to push boundaries, and reinvent the art form; Dancing is equivalent to “move fast and break things.” But for Paul, “there is nothing wrong with the organic movement.” “There’s a reason why it’s attractive, the way nature is attractive. There’s an inherent idea of ​​beauty, and you can play with it. Breaking the rules is interesting, but just pretending that it’s not a thing anymore and that we’re not human, I don’t know how far you can go with that.” At the same time, he is not interested in “playing around making beautiful shapes.” “There are a lot of ballets like this, a lively atmosphere,” he says.

He wants his work to be full of meaning, and looks to literature, music and painting for inspiration (current favorites: Sibelius, Steinbeck). He was influenced by contemporary choreographer Jiri Kilian, artistic director of the Nederlands Dans Theatre, a company where Ball was offered an apprenticeship before being selected by the Royal Ballet, in a small Sliding Doors moment. He also wants to perform dance in smaller spaces, having danced for choreographer Kim Brandstrup at the Ustinov Studio in Bath (capacity 126, compared to 2,256 at the Royal Opera House).

“It was really exciting,” he says. “You’re so close to the audience. It felt like they were thinking: ‘This is a person, and they’re sweating,’” he inhales the imaginary scent. “I can see them breathing.” There’s a lot of immediate things and that makes it very tangible.” He even mentions organizing dance in churches. “I don’t practice any religion, but I find religious theater really interesting. It is a space designated for meditation. Even the idea of ​​lifting ourselves to a higher level, in whatever sense that might mean.”

Paul created duels with himself and the Hungarian, and the level of trust between them is clear. In To and Fro, there’s a stunning spike when Ball basically tosses Magri into the air and over his head while in side splits. “We tried it on the beach first, in Bahia, Brazil,” he says. “It was like dirty dancing.” He and Maigret wouldn’t normally be a match as a couple at the Royal Ballet and it’s probably healthy for them not to be together 24/7 (the pair share a flat off Holloway Road in north London). “It can be a lot. We’re both very strong-willed people, so it’s not always a great thing. But I think we give each other a lot of support. If she’s away and not in the wings or watching my show, I feel it a lot. It makes me seem very needy!” he laughs. “I feel like we’re each other’s favorite cheerleaders,” he says, which sounds like the definition of a good relationship.

You can see them giving masterclasses together on Ball’s Instagram account, along with clips from dance films Ball makes, modeling shoots, and all the usual ballet dancer photos of beautifully sculpted bodies that elicit many fire emojis in the comments. Does he mind that what gets attention on social media can be somewhat anthropomorphic? Not real. “The body is just what we work with, so I don’t feel too precious about it.” He recalls how he was influenced by Michelangelo’s David in Florence and all the different levels you could look at: “It can be sexual, but also perfect and pure at the same time. The delicacy of the statue, the vein that seems to literally pulsate, the most delicate skin.” It’s a stretch to compare Instagram to the Italian Renaissance, but you get what he’s saying.

Paul describes himself when he was younger as “desperate for success.” Did it live up to his expectations? “I feel very aware of how life is a different reality than the dreams I had when I was young,” he says, quick to add, “I don’t feel disillusioned or disillusioned, I’m having fun… a lot What I’m doing.” He probably has another decade of dancing, but where do you go after you’ve ticked all the boxes on your list? Ball can’t quite picture it. “I was determined about it when I was nine, and I feel as though I’ve achieved it myself,” he says.

“I think in the future I want to be kinder to myself.”

An Evening with Matthew Ball at the Royal Academy of Music: Susie Sainsbury’s Theatre, London, 14 December.