In the quiet atmosphere of a hotel bar near London's Royal Ballet, Matthew Ball requests a mint tea. The dancer's carriage is effortlessly straight-backed, his arms muscular beneath a plain tee. During performances, ballet dancers can seem as powerful deities, yet often in person they are petite. This is not true for Ball, whose tall stature is part of his popularity for heroic roles and pas de deux work. With fine features and piercing eyes, there's a hint of Robert Pattinson about him.
A Seamless Rise to the Top
Now 31, Ball is enjoying the peak of a career that has progressed smoothly. Growing up in Liverpool, he faced minimal ridicule for his early interest in ballet. Joining the Royal Ballet School at 11, he graduated straight into the company and was promoted annually, reaching the top rank of principal in 2018. He has loved tackling meaty dramatic roles, especially the psychological angst found in Kenneth MacMillan's works.
"Your breath is short, your legs get heavy, but it’s really a mental fatigue."
His upcoming starring role is as himself, in an "In Conversation" event designed to offer intimate insights into a performer's craft. He will guide the audience through a role, showing his mental process while performance. Yet in more comedic ballets, the challenge is significant. "Don Quixote is one of the most demanding from a skill perspective," he notes.
The Mental Struggle and After the Show Emotions
How does he feel following a performance, when he has pulled it off? "It's pretty good," he says. "However because I'm trying to squeeze all the emotion out of it, and get lost in the character, quite often I do feel self-conscious afterwards. After Mayerling I'm always like: God, what must people think?"
Offstage, Ball is reflective, mild-mannered, and prone to laugh at himself. Yet a dance maker once remarked on a "kind of suffering in him." Is there? "I'm quite active usually, but I do have a dark side," he reveals. "I somewhat enjoy pessimism sometimes. I've always felt that doubt has been an catalyst for good change."
Formative Motivations and Artistic Influences
His determination stemmed from early experiences. Not doing well in competitions at school made him "vengeful!" This became motivation to demonstrate he could succeed. Reading the book *Mao's Last Dancer* was a "watershed" moment. "It changed everything, it made me go a bit obsessive," he recalls.
The next endeavor is creating his own choreography. For Ball, "there's nothing wrong with." "Breaking the conventions is interesting, but just pretending that they’re not a thing any more – I don’t know how far you can go with that." He wants his work to be loaded with meaning, drawing inspiration from books, compositions, and art.
Intimate Performance and Private Partnership
He also is interested in staging dance in more intimate spaces. "It was just really thrilling," he says of a previous experience. "You’re so near to the viewers. I felt as if they were realizing: 'That’s a human, and they’re sweating.'"
Ball has created duets with his girlfriend, fellow lead dancer Mayara Magri. The level of trust between them is clear. "We tried it out on the beach first," he says of a daring lift. "It resembled Dirty Dancing." They aren’t typically paired on stage at their main theater, which is perhaps healthy. "We’re both quite strong-willed people, so it’s not always smooth sailing," he notes. "Yet I feel like we’re each other’s favorite cheerleader."
On Social Media and Bodily Perception
On Instagram, fans can see clips from his dance films and photos that highlight a athletic form. Does he mind that the engagement can be a bit objectifying? Not really. "The body is just what we work with, so I don’t feel very protective about it," he explains. He compares it to viewing Michelangelo’s David—an object that can be seen on multiple ways.
Ball describes his early self as "desperate for success." Did it met his hopes? "I am conscious of how reality is a different reality to the aspirations you made as a child," he reflects. He probably has about ten years of dancing left. "I suppose in the time to come, I want to be a bit more gentle with myself."
