Reece Clarke

Principal of The Royal Ballet
Reece Clarke in Diamonds, The Royal Ballet ©2022 ROH. Photographed by Andrej Uspenski
Reece Clarke in Diamonds, The Royal Ballet ©2022 ROH. Photographed by Andrej Uspenski
Reece Clarke in Diamonds, The Royal Ballet ©2022 ROH. Photographed by Andrej Uspenski

Biography

Scottish dancer Reece Clarke is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. He trained at The Royal Ballet School and graduated into the Company during the 2013/14 Season, and was promoted to First Artist in 2016, Soloist in 2017, First Soloist in 2020, and to Principal, 2022.

Clarke grew up in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire. He and his three elder brothers trained at the Janis Ridley School of Dance in Scotland before joining The Royal Ballet School. Reece entered White Lodge in 2006 – the first time in the School’s history that four boys from the same family have all trained at the School. Awards while at the School included the Young British Dancer of the Year in 2012, the Lynn Seymour Competition in 2013 and an award from the Ballet Association. Awards since joining the Company have included the Emerging Artist Award at the 2016 National Dance Awards.

Clarke’s appearances with the Company have included Romeo, Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake), Onegin, Albrecht (Giselle), Prince Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), Prince (The Nutcracker), The Prince (Cinderella), Young Man (The Two Pigeons), Aminta (Sylvia), Polixenes and Antigonus (The Winter’s Tale), Dr Samuel-Jean Pozzi (Strapless), Officer (Anastasia), Des Grieux (Manon), Dr John Brown (Like Water for Chocolate), Colonel 'Bay' Middleton (Mayerling) and Principal roles in Scènes de ballet, DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse, Symphonic Variations, After the Rain, Monotones II, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Dances at a Gathering, ‘Diamonds’ (Jewels), Within the Golden Hour and In Our Wishes, as well as roles in Carbon Life, Obsidian Tear and Corybantic Games. He created roles in Charlotte Edmonds’s Meta and Liam Scarlett’s Symphonic Dances.

Corybantic Games; Cinderella (The Prince); 'Diamonds' from Jewels; Mayerling (Colonel 'Bay' Middleton)

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