The Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and The Australian Ballet announced that #WorldBalletDay2021 will take place on 19 October. The global celebration returns for its eighth year, bringing together a host of the world’s leading companies for a packed day of dance.
Over the course of the day, rehearsals, discussions and classes will be streamed for free across 6 continents, offering unique behind-the-scenes glimpses of ballet’s biggest stars and upcoming performers.
Also read
The 2021 edition of World Ballet Day is set to be the biggest ever. #WorldBalletDay
With COVID-19 guidelines changing daily across the globe, dance companies have struggled to return to stages and rehearsal studios. This year’s celebration will recognize the extraordinary resilience of this art form in the face of those challenges, showcasing the breadth of talent performing, choreographing, and working on productions today.
The 2021 edition of #WorldBalletDay is set to be the biggest ever. In collaboration with TikTok, and with streams across YouTube and Facebook, this year’s viewership is expected to exceed the previous record set in 2019, when #WorldBalletDay content was viewed over 300 million times.
This year’s celebration of our cherished art form will be more important and meaningful than ever, as friends and colleagues around the world return to the stage and the studio, many still with great difficulty. I hope World Ballet Day continues to provide dancers and ballet lovers across the globe with a sense of solidarity – and at the same time introduces a new generation to the beauty and inspiration of ballet that have sustained and nourished our audience members over the past 18 months.
Kevin O’Hare, Director of The Royal Ballet
Photo: Joe Plimmer, @ Royal Opera House
World Ballet Day 2020, celebrated on 29 October, was the biggest ever celebration of global dance with 40 dance companies that participated in an unique live streamed event. The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and The Royal Ballet were joined by dance companies from across the globe including Polish National Ballet, The Royal Danish Ballet , Wiener Staatsballett, Stuttgart Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, La Scala Ballet Company, Staatsballet Berlin, Finnish National Ballet, Opera Sofia, The Mikhailovsky Theatre, Mariinsky Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet, Royal Academy of Dance from Europe, but also many companies from America, Asia&Pacific orAfrica, like: National Ballet of Canada, Houston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Acosta Danza, Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, São Paulo Dance Company, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Boston Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, (Asia Pacific) Singapore Dance Theatre, Hong Kong Ballet, West Australian Ballet, Korean National Ballet, National Ballet of Japan, Queensland Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, (Africa) Cape Town City Ballet, Joburg Ballet
The celebration gave the opportunity for the audience to go exclusively behind the scenes of the world’s top ballet companies.
