Photo Gallery: 50 Years of the Ballet, By Colin Jones

by Ismene BrownThursday, 13 January 2011

1999: English National Ballet corps warm up in Hong Kong before 'Swan Lake'All images © Colin Jones/Arenapal.com

Rudy and Margot do intensely serious barre in an Italian garden, Lynn Seymour enjoys a "Loyal Ballet" poster on a 1962 Japanese tour, in Glasgow two ballet girls snatch some rest in uncomfortable chairs. The real world of ballet, as shot by the insider who became a world photographer, Colin Jones. Read the interview with him, describing the friendships and tragic dramas behind the exhibition of 50 years of his ballet pictures at Proud Chelsea Gallery - events as turbulent as anything onstage.

Dancers only want to look absolutely perfect in their pictures. To me that wasn't what it was about, it was about the physical work

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