Choreographer Jessica Lang returns with a new work inspired by Dame Ninette de Valois’ poems for the School’s 2026 Summer Performances
Choreographer Jessica Lang returns to the School for the second consecutive year to create a new work for the centenary edition of our annual Summer Performances.
It’s so exciting to be a part of the centenary celebration. I’m super honoured as an American to be contributing to this programme to honour the School’s legacy.
Jessica is working with our 2nd Year students on the new commission, the same cohort that she worked with last year on Sweet Morning Blooms for our 2025 Summer Performances. She is excited for the opportunity to continue building their creative partnership and sharing her knowledge with the next generation of artists.
Choreographer Jessica Lang
It is such a great opportunity to be a part of the responsibility of developing a young dancer into the profession. The dancers are so refined, and they have so much potential. The energy in the room is technically very high, but their artistry is also very high. For young people, they understand what they’re a part of during a creative process. Many people don’t understand that, but somehow the tradition of The Royal Ballet School, having a focus on choreography, helps develop the dancer beyond just the dance.
I’m growing the dancers this year, being with the same group, and it’s so important that I build upon their education. It’s not just about my work. It’s never really all about me, especially in an educational environment. What I do is for the students.
As I’m working, I’m giving the students tricks of my trade for them to take and develop their own ideas. From there, maybe they start to understand their own process, let their minds wander and think, oh, that’s a good idea, let me try. I feel like you can’t really teach someone how to choreograph, but you can give them tools.
Jessica in rehearsal with then-1st Year students for Sweet Morning Blooms in 2024.
I feel like it’s important to be part-teacher in this multi-year commission where I come back and work with the same group. It’s easier because you feel like you can get to know the students and vice versa. You start to have a working relationship with them. They understand who I am and how I work, and that should hopefully set them up to understand that process with other choreographers that they’ll meet along the way.
We wanted to make something that was at the beginning of their journey. It’s a very competitive world, and everybody has their eyes set on a goal. But in reaching that, I wanted to convey this idea that they would be individual, and so I created Sweet Morning Blooms. They were individual blooms, different flowers, and when they come together to make a bouquet, the perfume is that much more beautiful, and that is a metaphor for their strengths, weaknesses and growth as dancers.
They were very eager. It was beautiful.
Sweet Morning Blooms at Opera Holland Park in 2025.
For her new centenary commission, Jessica studied the foundations of the School and decided to honour Founder Dame Ninette de Valois, known as ‘Madam’ to her students.
I feel very compelled to do something honouring Madam. I was talking to Leanne Benjamin (Australian alum and former Principal with The Royal Ballet) about me being American and how to contribute to the School’s legacy in an honourable way, and she told me about Madam’s poetry.
Leanne had read Ninette’s poetry, published in compilations titled The Cycle and Other Poems (1985) and Collected Poems (1998). Jessica then reached out to Sarasota Ballet Artistic Director Iain Webb (alum and former Soloist with The Royal Ballet), who sent her a copy of the poems.
I immediately called Sarasota Ballet, where I am Artist in Residence, because Iain Webb is a muse of knowledge for The Royal Ballet. I asked him, ‘Do you have Madam’s books of poetry?’ And he said, ‘Yes, right here on the shelf.’
When Jessica returned to her home base in New York City, she reached back out to Leanne and her family.
Leanne’s husband, Tobias Round, is my manager, and their son, Thomas, is a writer who went to school for literature and language, and so he’s very articulate with poetry. I sat with him in New York in a cafe with the poems and said, ‘Tell me what this one means,’ and we went through line by line. I had narrowed the poems down, but he helped me understand which poems stood out and which would be appropriate for the School.
I pitched the choreographic concept to Iain right away, and he loved it immediately because it has meaning, value and depth, but he also appreciated the life lessons I brought to the process. My lesson for this project is that, although our medium is dance, what other layers can we add to our creative lives? Clearly, Madam was this icon to this building, this place that we call The Royal Ballet School. But she had a creative outlet that made her feel, I assume, inspired in a similar but different way.
I relate to that because I’m painting now – not that I am a painter, but I like to paint. I want the dancers to bring more creativity in their lives so that they’re multi-layered artists, whether it’s through fashion, cooking or any other creative medium that supports their dancing, so that they will have texture and stories to tell that go beyond their steps.
Her new work will feature three of Ninette’s poems: I Love Pubs, The Contented Ghost and Said the Child…. Each will be read and recorded respectively by alumni Dame Monica Mason (former Principal and Director of The Royal Ballet), Dame Darcey Bussell (former Principal at The Royal Ballet and President of the Royal Academy of Dance) and Kevin O’Hare CBE (Director of The Royal Ballet).
Jessica asked 2nd Year student Harry, who had a featured role in Sweet Morning Blooms, to record the poems for rehearsals.
The way he talks and the sensitivity in his voice is so warm and poetic, so I thought, oh, have him read them and let’s record them. We use his recordings as a placeholder, and he’s done so well with it. We have been creating to his voice.
Harry is a writer himself and felt inspired by Madam’s multifaceted artistry. ‘I was really happy to be asked because I write often myself, so I really enjoyed reading them. I wasn’t aware that Madam was a writer as well, so it was really nice to think about the way that she would have written them and wanted them to be spoken.’
Jessica shared that the three poems will have an atmospheric musical background that will lead straight into Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24 ‘Spring’: Adagio molto espressivo. She previously worked with Shakespeare’s sonnets in 2016 with Birmingham Royal Ballet to honour the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Sir David Bintley, who is also choreographing a new work for this year’s Summer Performances was Artistic Director at the time. Jessica’s piece, Wink, is also based on sonnet 43, which was performed by actors against an ambient musical soundscape.
I love working with the voice. I think you have to move slower because I think we have to hear then see. If you go too fast movement-wise, it becomes garbled. There’s a narrative approach where you’re trying to tell a story, but it’s not so much a story, just the words resonating with the meaning of the movement.
Jessica is proud and grateful to join the School’s centenary celebrations as one of a star-studded lineup of choreographers, including Ninette de Valois, David Bintley, Sir Peter Wright, Cathy Marston, Christopher Wheeldon, Andrew McNicol and Kristen McNally.
It’s a huge honour, and I love that it’s with an organisation that I truly believe in, under the leadership of Iain Mackay . I first met Iain in 2012 when I walked into my casting under David at Birmingham Royal Ballet, and he made such an impression on me. Now, we’re in this situation where Iain’s the director and Sir David is a master choreographer on the same programme I am contributing to. We could never have predicted that. It’s just how life evolves.
I think this is what Madam wanted to set up. She’s given us this opportunity. We’re fulfilling her dream of having an ongoing legacy of creating dance at the School.
See Jessica’s new work at our 2026 Summer Performances at Opera Holland Park from 8-11 July. Tickets are selling fast, so book your spot here.
Watch Jessica Lang in rehearsal with our students in 2025:
