Ballet for All
Aug 31, 2026 · 49 min · 12 segments
A special episode of Voices of British Ballet with some of the people involved in Ballet For All. Jeanetta Laurence, formerly a dancer with and Associate Director of the Royal Ballet, hosts a…
Aug 31, 2026 · 49 min · 12 segments
A special episode of Voices of British Ballet with some of the people involved in Ballet For All. Jeanetta Laurence, formerly a dancer with and Associate Director of the Royal Ballet, hosts a…
Fergus EarlyGuest
Oliver SimonsGuest
Nicola KatrakGuest
Mark SilverGuestI'm Janetta Lawrence, formerly a dancer with and Associate Director of the Royal Ballet.
Today we'll be talking about Ballet for All, the dance education and performance programme which was the brainchild of Peter Brinson, intellectual, educator and visionary.
He wrote ballet reviews as well as giving lectures on the history of ballet and dance at Oxford, Cambridge and London universities.
These lectures began to morph into more practical lecture demonstrations with dancers and ultimately he proposed touring a small unit of six dancers, two actors and two pianists to towns and villages in the UK.
The newly founded Gulbenkian Foundation and the Arts Council granted him the funds to do it and, in conjunction with the Royal Ballet, in September 1964, Ballet for All was born.
It ran until 1979, and today I'm joined around the table by four people who were part of Ballet for All, as I was too, and who all worked closely with Peter Brinson.
Oliver Simons left the Royal Ballet School in 1954 and after his national service in the RAF, joined the Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet, followed by Western Theatre Ballet and then the Royal Ballet.
65 years on, he is still performing character roles with the company at Covent Garden.
As well as dancing in almost every programme, Ollie was Ballet Master for Ballet for All from its start in 1964 to its closure in 1979.
He became a principal dancer and danced all the major roles with most of the leading ballerinas of the time.
Nicola Catrack joined Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1975, becoming a principal in 1983.
Fergus Early joined the Royal Ballet in 1964, becoming assistant ballet master and choreographer with Ballet for All four years later.
He subsequently had a freelance career as a teacher and choreographer and, in 1987, founded the community dance group Green Candle.
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