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Darcey Bussell

Michael Berkeley's guest is dancer and former Strictly judge Darcey Bussell. With music by Bach, Mozart, Faure and Stravinsky.

Darcey Bussell became principal dancer of the Royal Ballet at the age of only twenty; she went on to become a household name thanks to her seven years as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, a job she unexpectedly stepped down from earlier this year.

In conversation with Michael Berkeley, she looks back at a career which started when, against the wishes of her mother, she went to ballet school at thirteen 鈥 and was desperately unhappy, thinking she鈥檇 made the worst mistake of her life. Alone, away from her family, she used to listen to Mozart鈥檚 Requiem again and again. She had little hope of becoming a star ballerina as she was 鈥渢oo tall鈥 at five foot seven, and 鈥渘ot British-looking鈥; what this amounted to is that most British male dancers were not tall enough to partner her. But then she met choreographer Kenneth Macmillan, and he saw her potential. She reflects candidly on the 鈥渄isciplines and sacrifices鈥 of a life devoted to dance: the long hours training, dancing till your stamina runs out and you literally can鈥檛 feel your legs. Tchaikovsky鈥檚 Sleeping Beauty pushed her to the limit. She reveals how becoming a judge on Strictly gave her new confidence to speak in public for the first time and why she doesn鈥檛 mind being labelled as the judge who was 鈥渢oo nice鈥. She talks too about creating a new post-performance life out of the glare of the public eye, her mission to bring dance to all schoolchildren, about injuries and the battle for fitness, and about the toll dancing has taken on her feet.

Her music choices range from the intensely serious 鈥 Stravinsky's 'Agon, Poulenc's Gloria, the Mozart and Faure Requiems - to Dinah Washington鈥檚 鈥淢ad about the Boy鈥 and 鈥淩oxanne鈥 by The Police.

A Loftus production for 大象传媒 Radio 3
Produced by Elizabeth Burke

Available now

39 minutes

Last on

Sun 19 Apr 2020 12:00

Music Played

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    Introitus (Requiem)

    Orchestra: London Mozart Players. Choir: 大象传媒 Singers. Conductor: Jane Glover.
  • Francis Poulenc

    Laudamus Te (Gloria)

    Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra. Choir: Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Conductor: Seiji Ozawa.
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

    Pas de deux - Adagio (The Sleeping Beauty, Act III)

    Orchestra: Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Conductor: Mark Ermler.
  • Igor Stravinsky

    Pas de deux (Agon)

    Orchestra: New York City Ballet Orchestra. Conductor: Robert Irving.
  • Sylvius Leopold Weiss

    Fantasia in C minor

    Performer: Andr茅s Segovia.
  • No毛l Coward

    Mad About the Boy

    Singer: Dinah Washington.
  • Gabriel Faur茅

    In Paradisum (Requiem)

    Orchestra: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Choir: Choir of King鈥檚 College, Cambridge. Conductor: Stephen Cleobury.
  • Sting

    Roxanne

    Ensemble: The Police.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 29 Dec 2019 12:00
  • Sun 19 Apr 2020 12:00

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