Within the quiet atmosphere of a hotel bar near London's Royal Ballet, Matthew Ball orders a mint tea. The dancer's carriage is effortlessly upright, his limbs muscular beneath a plain tee. On stage, ballet dancers can appear as mighty deities, yet often in person they are petite. This is not true for Ball, whose height is one reason for his popularity for princely roles and partnering. With delicate traits and piercing eyes, there's a hint of a brooding actor about him.
A Seamless Rise to the Top
At 31, Ball is experiencing the peak of a career that has advanced smoothly. Growing up in Liverpool, he encountered minimal ridicule for his childhood interest in ballet. Entering the Royal Ballet School at 11, he moved directly into the troupe and was promoted annually, reaching the top rank of principal in 2018. He has relished tackling substantial characters, especially the emotional angst found in Kenneth MacMillan's ballets.
"Your lungs are burning, your legs get heavy, but it’s really a neural fatigue."
Ball's next featured appearance is in a talk, in an "In Conversation" series aiming to offer intimate insights into a performer's art. He will walk the audience through a role, showing his mental workflow while performance. Even in more comedic works, the test is significant. "Don Quixote is one of the toughest from a skill perspective," he states.
The Mental Game and After the Show Feelings
What about after a show, when he has pulled it off? "It's pretty good," he admits. "However because I'm trying to squeeze all the emotion out of it, and get lost in the role, quite often I do feel self-conscious later. After Mayerling I'm always thinking: Wow, what must people think?"
In person, Ball is thoughtful, polite, and quick to laugh at himself. But a dance maker once observed on a "kind of suffering in him." Does this exist? "I am very active usually, but I do have a dark side," he confesses. "I somewhat enjoy negativity sometimes. I've always felt that negativity has been an instigator for good change."
Early Drivers and Artistic Influences
His tenacity stemmed from youthful setbacks. Not doing well in competitions at school made him "vengeful!" It was fuel to prove he could succeed. Discovering the book *Mao's Last Dancer* was a "pivotal" moment. "It flipped a switch, it made me go a bit fanatical," he recalls.
An upcoming endeavor is making his own dance works. In his view, "organic movement has value." "Breaking the rules is interesting, but just pretending that they’re not a thing any more – I don’t know how far you can go with that." He aims his work to be filled with substance, drawing ideas from literature, music, and painting.
Close-Up Performance and Private Partnership
He additionally favors staging dance in more intimate spaces. "It was just really exciting," he says of a previous show. "You’re so near to the viewers. I felt as if they were thinking: 'That’s a human, and they’re sweating.'"
Ball has made duets with his girlfriend, fellow principal Mayara Magri. The degree of faith between them is evident. "We first practiced on a beach," he says of a audacious lift. "It resembled Dirty Dancing." The couple aren’t typically paired on stage at their main theater, which is perhaps healthy. "We’re both quite strong-willed people, so it’s not always hunky dory," he notes. "But I feel like we’re each other’s favorite supporter."
On Social Media and Physical Perception
On Instagram, followers can see clips from his projects and images that highlight a athletic physique. Does he care that the engagement can be somewhat objectifying? Not particularly. "The body is just what we use, so I don’t feel very precious about it," he states. He relates it to viewing Michelangelo’s David—an object that can be interpreted on various ways.
Ball describes his younger self as "desperate for success." Did it lived up to his hopes? "I am conscious of how reality is a different thing to the aspirations you had as a child," he muses. He probably has another ten years of dancing left. "I suppose in the time to come, I want to be a bit more gentle with myself."
