Join Artistic Director, Tamara Rojo for another special company class for you to enjoy in your own home. Featuring music recorded and performed by Music Director, Gavin Sutherland.
Tamara Rojo
SONG OF THE EARTH / LA SYLPHIDE
MacMillan’s masterpiece and a beloved classic, performed for the first time.
English National Ballet presents a double bill featuring Kenneth MacMillan’s masterpiece Song of the Earth and Frank Andersen’s recreation of La Sylphide.
Song of the Earth
Inspired by Mahler’s haunting song cycle Das Lied von der Erde, MacMillan brings music, poetry and choreography together to capture the fragility of life, and its constant renewal. Three central figures portray the bittersweet reality of love, loss, and mortality: a Woman, a Man and an enigmatic Messenger.
First performed in 1965, Song of the Earth was a point of departure for MacMillan’s choreography, surprising and captivating audiences and critics. English National Ballet is honoured to add this revered MacMillan work to its repertoire.
A piercing work of art
Akram Khan’s Giselle
La Sylphide
On the morning of his wedding to his sweet fiancée Effy, James awakens from a dream to see a mysterious and tantalising Sylphide before him. His obsession with her sets off a fateful sequence of events where joy turns to sorrow, love to betrayal and infatuation to tragedy.
August Bournonville’s classic Romantic ballet is devotedly recreated by Eva Kloborg and Frank Andersen in this captivating production, and is accompanied by an enchanting score, played live by English National Ballet Philharmonic.
La Sylphide is a beautiful jewel in the history of ballet and I can’t wait for the Company and our audiences to rediscover it.
Tamara Rojo, Artistic Director English National Ballet
Get a unique insight into Song of the Earth – hear Tamara Rojo and Deborah MacMillan discuss this masterwork in the video below.
RECENT DANCING VIDEOS
NEW YORK GALAS 2017
April 14, 2017 – New York Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, Julio Bocca Birthday Gala
DON QUIJOTE PDD: TAMARA ROJO_ISAAC HERNÁNDEZ
DUST
Speech at the opening of SHOES: PLEASURE AND PAIN
Tamara Rojo, Lead Principle and Artistic Director, English National Ballet speech at the opening of SHOES: PLEASURE AND PAIN.
3 June 2015 – 31 January 2016. This exhibition will look at the extremes of footwear from around the globe, presenting around 200 pairs of shoes ranging from a sandal decorated in pure gold leaf originating from ancient Egypt to the most elaborate designs by contemporary makers.
The Pointe Shoe Anti-Bunion Stretcher by Tamara Rojo is a device for widening the specific area of the enveloping part of the pointed ballet shoes, to facilitate a more comfortable use of said shoes to the ballerinas who suffer from the lateral deformation of the first segment of the phalangeal metatarsal joint forming a protrusion called hallux abductus valgus (hallux valgus) known as bunion. By stretching the satin canvas, at the wings area of the pointed shoes, the fitting of the ballerina’s foot suffering bunion into the pointe shoe is improved, consequently, it reduces the oppression in the bunion, relieve discomfort and helps her to dance more comfortably.
Lest We Forget at the Sadler’s Wells 20 – 29 Sep 2018
ENB Lest We Forget program
DUST
Thursday 20 September
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Friday 21 September
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Saturday 22 September
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Monday 24 September (The Royal British Legion Thank You performance)
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Tuesday 25 September
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Thursday 27 September
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Saturday 29 September (mat)
Tamara Rojo, James Streeter, Fabian Reimair
Lest We Forget
English National Ballet wins dance South Bank Sky Arts Awards 2015 for Lest We Forget program.
Southbank Sky Arts Awards 2015 – Tamara Rojo winning speech
“This is a great honour and I’m deeply humbled by it. It is important to say that it is not an award for one individual, or even one team. It has been won by the whole company and I would like to pay tribute to and thank :~
CHOREOGRAPHERS: Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant, Liam Scarlett, George Williamson.
All our COLLABORATORS: Designers, particularly Bob Ringwood, Lighting designers, Composers and Costume makers.
The ORCHESTRA and MUSIC DIRECTOR, GAVIN SUTHERLAND, who is always up for everything and loves dance even more than me.
Our TECHNICAL TEAM, David Baxter, David Richardson and specially our technical director Al Riches, who always tells me all is ok even when I am seeing with my own eyes that it is falling apart, but somehow it is always alright in the end!
My DANCERS AND ARTISTIC TEAM, who embrace every challenge and deliver above all expectations.
TO ALL THE UNSUNG HEROES BEHIND THE SCENES, my Executive Director Caroline Thomson, producers, accountants, HR, development, marketing, costumes, hair and make-up outreach and education … You keep things going so we can all dream.
JUSTIN BICKLE, our Chairman, you are the embodiment of the definition of a philanthropist; A person that seeks the welfare of human kind. He who loves the arts. We could not be here without you and your amazing board.
And to the audience who follow us. We will be performing Lest We Forget from September, in London and around the country, so don’t miss it!
Thank you”.
Modern Masters
Sadler’s Wells, London
10 Mar 2015 – 15 Mar 2015

PETITE MORT
Created in 1991, Ji?í Kylián’s poetic piece, features six men, six women, and six fencing foils, symbolising energy, silence and sexuality. Performed to the slow movements of two Mozart Piano Concerti, the foils slowly become dancing partners, as the brutality of everyday life is revealed. Petite Mort is a quintessential Kylián masterwork, loved by our audience and our dancers when we performed it last year.
SPRING AND FALL
In the same year that Petite Mort was premiered, Hamburg Ballet’s John Neumeier, a new master of narrative and dramatic ballet, created Spring and Fall. Set to the Dvo?ák’s Serenade for Strings in E Major, it is a work for two couples and corps de ballet and takes its narrative from the tension in the music. Spring and Fall is not in the repertoire of any other UK company.
IN THE MIDDLE, SOMEWHAT ELEVATED
With In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, William Forsythe started a completely new school of choreography, deconstructing classical ballet and liberating a new generation of classical dancers to show off their abilities. Set against a bare stage it is danced by nine individuals culminating in a fierce display of technical and physical wizardry.