Antony Dowson

Monday l l th April, 2005
Crown Court Church of Scotland Hall, London W.C.2

We were delighted to welcome Antony Dowson, Head of Dance, English National Ballet School, who was introduced and interviewed by Michael Ludgate, Vice Chairman. Antony is a graduate of the Royal Ballet School and went on to join the Royal Ballet, where he danced a varied repertoire before he developed his present career as a distinguished teacher. He has been a guest teacher all over the world (including the Royal Ballet Company) and is now Head of Dance at the ENB School. As well as working to a very busy schedule at the ENB School, he is expanding his choreographic talents, which began with classroom demonstrations for ENB School students, and has now been invited by Monica Mason to create a work for performance by the Royal Ballet at the Linbury Theatre, as part of the Ashton celebrations.
Antony Dowson is a Londoner, born in Brixton, and was encouraged to attend his first dance classes by his father, who had been a professional dancer and had danced with Ballet International, as well as in a variety of musical shows. Antony dutifully worked hard at his RAD syllabus ballet classes at the Josephine Booth School in Clapham and in due course, auditioned for White Lodge. He said that at the time he was so unambitious that he did not realise that he was actually doing an audition for the Royal Ballet School. He was accepted and his interest began to grow when he reached the age of about 15, and came in contact with the inspiring teachers at the Royal Ballet School. He paid a glowing tribute to Richard Glasstone, a great teacher of boys, who had a huge influence on him. Antony really got serious about ballet when he arrived at the Upper School. He had parted company with some of his friends from White Lodge and now had to compete with a new set of people from all over the world, with impressive technical standards. Teachers who impressed and influenced him at the Upper School were Walter Trevor and Piers Beaumont, who taught in contrasting styles and were a very good combination.

At the Upper School Antony began to be chosen for walk on parts, such as a footman in "Manon". As he had been a day pupil at White Lodge during his first years there he was not very much involved in performances, nor had he seen a ballet on stage until as a pupil he was taken to Covent Garden. While at the Upper School the annual performance included "The Two Pigeons" and "Danses Concertantes" and Anthony was fortunate enough to have worked with Kenneth MacMillan from a very young age. When he joined the company he created roles in several of MacMillan's ballets.

While still a student, Antony was chosen to go on the Royal Ballet's last "grand tour" of the USA organised by Sol Hurok. He had small parts or a "walk on" nearly every night and considered himself very lucky to have seen Fonteyn and Nureyev so many times at the height of their great partnership.

Antony then became a company member and spoke about the many roles he danced and the choreographers and dancers he worked with. He singled out his work with Sir Frederick Ashton, which included a created role in "Rhapsody", and he danced Colas in "La Fille" - a role he had earlier danced with "Ballet for All". He felt privileged and very humble to have been chosen by Sir Kenneth MacMillan for "Song of the Earth" and "Mayerling". He then went on to speak of the many wonderful dancers he had partnered, including Karen Paisey, Fiona Chadwick, Merle Park (in Mayerling ), and Jennifer Penney. He spoke about changes to dancers' career development since his time, when dancers specialised in certain roles. Nowadays they work on four or five ballets in widely different styles at the same time, so those who used to dance mainly classical roles now cover a technical range from Forsythe to Petipa. Among present day RB dancers he especially admires Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg.

Eventually, Antony had to think about his future career when he would no longer be a dancer, and as he had started to develop an interest in teaching, he joined the RAD professional dancers' re-training course. He had already begun to develop his teaching skills while in the company by helping individual dancers with problems, but had reservations about helping a whole classroom full of people! However, he obviously had the aptitude and while he was still doing the RAD course, was approached by Kathryn Wade to come and teach at the English National Ballet School, where he has now been for the last 14 years. He paid tribute to Kathryn Wade, who encouraged him in his first attempts at choreography, and also to Derek Deane. Antony outlined the history of the ENB School, started by Peter Schaufuss as a three year course with about 16 students who had to work around the company timetable sharing the same studios in Jay Mews. He has now taken on 84 students to start next year. Kathryn Wade stood down as Director last summer and he has been asked to be Head of Dance, so it is a very exciting time for the school. Antony described the development of the school since leaving Jay Mews and moving into their new premises in Hortensia Road, Fulham. He thanked Kathryn Wade for all the hard work she undertook to get Lottery funding to finance this move. Antony called on our members to support the school projects and performances and all present agreed with enthusiasm to help when called upon.

He described the student audition procedure, which is Europe-wide, and how EU and government financing works by helping with tuition fees, but, as always, there is a shortfall and fund raising events must fill the gap. Plans include an ENB School gala featuring Galina Samsova's production of "Paquita" and a Jiri Kylian ballet. He said that Derek Deane hoped to build the company through the school and now Antony wishes to continue his work by using the school as a foundation for the company. He is glad to say that more graduates from the school are going into the company, and is beginning to think it is time that ENB now had a junior school. Antony described the co-operation between ENB dancers and the school where many of the company principals (Agnes Oaks, Thomas Edur, Daria Klimentova) now teach the students. Irek Mukhamedov has also been a guest teacher at the school.

Antony is developing his choreographic talents, with the help of the students, and mentioned that his work is included in a film starring Kevin Costner, not yet released, called "The Upside of Anger". We all look forward to this. He told us about the ballet Monica Mason has invited him to create for performance at the Linbury, as part of a programme of works inspired by Ashton, and also celebrating the influence of Constant Lambert. Antony stressed that when creating choreography he is inspired by the music which always comes first.

We all look forward very much to watching developments at the ENB School, and wish Antony success with his choreographic work and all future projects. Michael Ludgate thanked Antony very much for such a fascinating talk and presented him with a gift from the LBC members, to enthusiastic applause.