Colin Jones at the Ballet

Posted on January 7, 2011

This month, London photography gallery Proud Chelsea presents its first ballet exhibition, Fifty years of the ballet by Colin Jones. Our preview shows a selection of his images.

Born in 1936, Jones won a scholarship to The Royal Ballet School and danced with The Royal Ballet touring company. He bought his first camera in Japan, when running an errand for Margot Fonteyn. The exhibition covers five decades of dance, featuring such stars as Fonteyn and Nureyev and companies including The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and the Kirov (now Maryinsky) Ballet. Jones has an intimate backstage view, showing ballet’s mix of glamour and gruelling hard work.

The exhibition runs from January 13 to February 27, 2011. See www.proud.co.uk for details.  Photographs: © Colin Jones / Arenapal.com

Pictures:

Royal Ballet Touring Company – Shirley Grahame – Newcastle, 1961

The Royal Ballet rehearsing the last act of The Sleeping Beauty, with Robert Mead as the Bluebird, 1962

The Royal Ballet ; Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev doing a class before performing Swan Lake at the Nervi Festival – Di Levante , Italy, 1962

Northern Ballet Theatre, Leeds, England, 1991

English National Ballet – Hong Kong, 1999

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.