slotbet Resurrecting a British Company That Takes Ballet … Everywhere

Once upon a time, there was a plucky little ballet company that bravely toured all over the realm, bringing swans and fairies and tutus to all. Founded by a King (Harold King), it was called London City Ballet, and a real princess, Diana, became its patron. It survived from 1978 until 1996, when wicked powers (unmanageable debts) forced it to close.

Almost 30 years later, a fairy godmother appeared, and the company has returned to the stage.

The new London City Ballet, which opens the Joyce Theater’s season on Tuesday with an all-British bill, is the vision of Christopher Marney, a British choreographer. Marney, 45, was thinking about forming a small ensemble when an anonymous Japanese donor independently offered to fund just such a project.

It started when Marney choreographed a piece in Tokyo, in 2021, and then heard from an audience member. She wrote that “she had seen all the performances I had done in Japan,” Marney said, “followed my choreographic work there, and thought the next step would be to start my own troupe, which she would support.”

London City Ballet was Marney’s first experience of ballet: a performance of “Cinderella” in his hometown, Hornchurch, in Essex, when he was 11. “I knew immediately, this is my calling,” he said.

He danced with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and several European companies before becoming the director of the Central School of Ballet in London and its student ensemble; and for a short time he was artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet Studio Company. For both troupes, he staged little-known, small-scale works by the British choreographer Kenneth MacMillan and “began to wonder if there was a way of doing more of that kind of thing.”

ImageJane Sanig and Andrea Costa in a production of “Giselle” by the original London City Ballet. “Nobody had ever taken our place,” Sanig said. “A proper ballet company, with a good standard, touring everywhere.”Credit...Peter Mares/Bridgeman Images

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