UPDATE: Ashley Page to step down as director of Scottish Ballet

Posted on November 4, 2010

Scottish Ballet has announced that Ashley Page will leave the company in August 2012, when his current contract comes to an end.

He will have served as artistic director for 10 years, a period of stability and growth for the company. The Board of Scottish Ballet offered Page an extension to his contract, but he felt unable to accept. The company looks forward to working with Page for the rest of his tenure. The works he has commissioned and choreographed will remain within the company’s repertory. Page is currently restaging his Cinderella for Scottish Ballet this winter, and preparing his new Alice for next spring. The recruitment process for his successor will begin shortly.

UPDATE: Following Scottish Ballet’s announcement, Page has declared that he leaves the company with “great sadness and regret”. His representative explained that Page had hoped that the company’s board would have offered him a further five-year period as artistic director, following the success of his tenure. Instead, he was offered a single year extension to his current contract. Page also understood that the board were seeking alternative creative approaches, and decided, with disappointment, that “it would serve no good purpose to  accept this short term offer”.

Photograph: Andrew Ross

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.