Edward Watson

< Back to Principals 

Edward was born in Bromley and started his training locally.  He was a Junior Associate of The Royal Ballet School before training at both the Lower School (White Lodge) and Upper School.  He danced the Pas de deux in Matthew Hart's Simple Symphony and appeared in Ninette de Valois’ Checkmate in the 1993 School’s performance and Frederick Ashton's Monotones II and the Pas de six from Napoli Act III in the 1994 School’s performance.  He joined The Royal Ballet in December 1994 and was promoted to First Artist at the end of the 1997/98 Season, Soloist in 2001, made a First Soloist in 2002 and a Principal in August 2005.

He has created roles in six works by Ashley Page:  Sleeping with Audrey (1996 Dance Bites tour), Two Part Invention (November 1996, Covent Garden), When We Stop Talking (1998 Dance Bites tour), Cheating, Lying, Stealing (Quartet; Barbican June 1998), Sawdust and Tinsel (The Tumbler; Sadler’s Wells November 1998) and Hidden Variables (December 1999, Covent Garden).  He also created a role in Cathy Marston’s work for the 1997 Dance Bites tour, Figure in Progress as well as Unstrung Tension, Between Shadows for the Artists’ Development Initiative (February, May 2002), Siobhan Davies’ A Stranger’s Taste (December 1999, Covent Garden).  During the 1999/2000 Season he created roles in Wayne McGregor’s Symbiont[s], Chroma and Qualia, Matthew Hart’s Acheron’s Dream, Ashley Page’s This House Will Burn (2001), Christopher Wheeldon’s Tryst (2002), the Chosen One in Robert Garland’s Spring Rites (Linbury 2004), Cathy Marston’s Venetian Requiem (Linbury 2004), Matjash Mrozewski’s Castle Nowhere (2006), Christopher Wheeldon’s DGV and Electric Counterpoint, and Fernando in Will Tuckett’s The Seven Deadly Sins.

Since joining the Company he has danced in a wide variety of works including roles in The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Twyla Tharp’s Mr Worldly Wise, George Balanchine’s Symphony in C (Third Movement), First Aria Couple in Stravinsky Violin Concerto, The Four Temperaments and Agon. His MacMillan repertory includes an officer and the husband in Anastasia, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, La Fin du Jour, Andrej Prozorov in Winter Dreams, the Friend in The Judas Tree, Des Grieux in Manon, The Brother in My Brother, My Sisters, Solo Boy in Gloria, Triad, Images of Love, The Messenger of Death in Song of the Earth and Prince Rudolf in Mayerling and Elite Syncopations.  His Frederick Ashton roles include Arthur Troyte Griffith in Enigma Variations, the side Neopolitan Couple in Ondine, Boy in the Pink Couple in La Valse, Scènes de ballet, Daphnis in Daphnis and Chloë, Palemon in Ondine, Oberon in The Dream, the side couple in Symphonic Variations and the Prince in Cinderella.

Other roles include one of the three Men in Page’s Fearful Symmetries, Miss Jessell in William Tuckett’s The Turn of the Screw, the Shy Boy in Robbins’ The Concert, Stephen Baynes’ Beyond Bach, William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, In the middle, somewhat elevated, Nacho Duato’s Remanso, Mats Ek’s Carmen, Christopher Wheeldon’s Polyphonia, Jiří Kylián’s Sinfonietta, lead Hungarian couple in Nureyev’s Raymonda Act III and Le Printemps in David Bintley’s Les Saison, Tombeaux, the Teacher in Flemming Flindt’s
The Lesson, Brighella in Glen Tetley’s Pierrot Lunaire, Ivan Tsarevitch in Mikhail Fokine’s The Firebird, Jerome Robbins’s Afternoon of a Faun and Albrecht in Peter Wright’s production of Giselle.

Future Performances

• The Royal Ballet
  La Valse / New Brandstrup / Winter Dreams / Theme and Variations
  Main Auditorium
  

  Performances

  Sat 16 Oct 2010, 12:30 PM Buy Now
  
  Thu 28 Oct 2010, 7:30 PM Buy Now
  
  
• The Royal Ballet
  Giselle
  Main Auditorium
  

  Performances

  Fri 14 Jan 2011, 7:30 PM
  Friends Booking: 07.09 8AM / General Booking: 05.10 10AM
  Thu 20 Jan 2011, 7:30 PM
  Friends Booking: 07.09 8AM / General Booking: 05.10 10AM