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With many new full-length dance works to look out for in the new season, we preview several anticipated new creations from leading choreographers – including a number with newly commissioned scores.

Bachtrack’s Dance Editor Deborah Weiss picks ten young dancers who made a deep impression last season, and what to expect from them in 2025–26.

Alina Cojocaru talks about the magical process of creating new roles, working with great choreographers and how, in spite of a long career, she is still learning every day.

Ravel’s first ballet Daphnis et Chloé is an overwhelming sensory experience – but its birth as a production choreographed by Mikhail Fokine for the Ballets Russes was not without complications...

Miyako Yoshida talks about her deep connection to Giselle, bringing her own production to London with the National Ballet of Japan, and the challenges of being an artistic director.

Choreographer Eyal Dadon talks about his latest work for the Czech National Ballet, seeking to capture the complexity – and catastrophe – of contemporary life.

In one of the most incredible career journeys, Maria Seletskaja talks about her move from full time ballerina with Royal Ballet Flanders to becoming English National Ballet’s new Music Director. 

Lynne Charles tells us why she has become passionate about teaching and why the mix of contemporary and classical choreography requires an urgent rethink of training and injury prevention.

A tribute to a much-loved and highly respected principal of the Mariinsky Ballet, who died at the tragically early age of 39.

Sir Matthew Bourne talks about his passion for storytelling in dance, and his own personal journey with his radical gender-flipped Swan Lake.

Arielle Smith talks frankly about expectations, levelling the playing field, her passion for the art form and the importance of music as a starting point.

As Nina Ananiashvili brings the State Ballet of Georgia to London for the first time in its 175-year history, she explains what her directorship of 20 years has meant to her.

The choreographer and creative director of the Estonian National Ballet School, Teet Kask, talks in great depth about training, thinking consciously about authentic movement and his current projects.

The original cast of principals – and current interpreters – discuss the joys of working with the late choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton, and the great legacy he has left to today’s dancers.

The great ballerina Alessandra Ferri talks with candour about her long career and how excited she is to become artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet.

Beginning as a teenage b-boy in Mumbai, Manish Chauhan has managed the almost-impossible – to become a ballet principal, a transition featured in Netflix’s documentary Call Me Dancer.

The new director of San Francisco Ballet talks candidly about adapting to a new role, and the challenges and pleasures of living and working in California.

Former Royal Ballet principal, Graham Fletcher, fondly remembers a highly unusual experience with Rudolf Nureyev on The Muppet Show.

A message of fondness to all Nutcracker lovers: the music still works its magic, even after hundreds of performances. 

The Artistic Director of Sadler’s Wells talks candidly about his unwavering love for encouraging new dance, his visions for the future – and how much of himself he sees in Mick Jagger.

Choreographer David Dawson talks about emotional physicality, dance as a journey – and how dancers are “always in a state of becoming something else”.

The competition attracted around two hundred competitors from 18 countries, culminating in a gala that belonged to the aspiring young dancers who filled the evening with their hope and joy.

Spanish choreographer Avatâra Ayuso talks candidly about fellow choreographer Bronislava Nijinska, historical misogyny within the dance sector, and what we are doing about it today.

Europe’s newest ballet school – attached to Hungarian State Opera in Budapest – prepares a version of Tchaikovsky and Petipa’s classic, designed expressly for young dancers.

Anna Hop has already become a choreographer of some note, but combines it with a full-time job as a member of Polish National Ballet’s corps de ballet.

With ten new productions and a ballet world premiere, the 2023–24 season at Zurich is the opera gastronome’s delight.

Tom Pye has drawn inspiration from the magical fairytale illustrations of Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham with his new set designs for Frederick Ashton's Cinderella.

What is it about classical ballet that makes it so enduring? Darcey Bussell, Cynthia Harvey and Aaron S. Watkin give their views on the continuing importance of classical dance.

Bachtrack’s new Dance Editor has had a remarkable career as a dancer, working with everyone from Rudolf Nureyev, to Margot Fonteyn, to Alicia Markova.

British dancer Rebecca Haw runs an agency giving guidance to young dancers auditioning for places in ballet companies. She describes the impact Brexit has had on British dancers.

For dance companies, the National Portfolio funding for 2023-26 reveals many new names, with winners for diversity and disability and losers for established companies in London.

Pavel Kolesnikov never intended to play Bach's Goldberg Variations – such is the shadow cast by Glenn Gould – but then choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker proposed something unusual. 

Jenifer Sarver looks at the disturbing short stories, which, ironically, inspired two of the lightest confections of the ballet repertoire: The Nutcracker and Coppélia.

The Artistic Director of English National Ballet reflects on her company's lockdown achievements and discusses her first foray into choreography to revive a 19th-century classic. 

Since the end of the 19th century, a whole raft of schools and companies were founded by women, resulting in a large number of seminal works in dance history.

The artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders talks about the travails and inspirations of lockdown and the need to continually ask questions about culture.

Has lockdown made Hofesh Shechter more reflective? More political? A better teacher? Has he taken the time to compose? Read our interview to find out...

The founder of La Veronal has been busy during lockdown and he's now back in the studio. He tells us what's coming up.

The associate artist of KVS (Flemish Royal Theatre) and co-founder of Belgian dance-theatre compagnie Peeping Tom tells us about the upset caused by the pandemic and its consequences for future productions

Co-director of CCN2 (the National Choreographic Centre in Grenoble) since 2016, Rachid Ouramdane tells us how the pandemic has affected the way he creates and produces his work.

Follow the ballet stars in their daily routines in their own homes, often in good company: not only are we seeing them on pointe, but we also get a cat, a hoover, a Quiche Lorraine...

In conversation with Bence Vági, founder and artistic director of contemporary circus ensemble Recirquel.

Benjamin Freemantle, newly minted soloist at San Francisco Ballet, tells us about some memorable roles, about his ventures into choreography, and how he's trying to make a difference. 

With the reopening of the Grand Théâtre and a Ring cycle, Tobias Richter's last season finishes his ten year tenure in style.

Parisians with an appetite for contemporary dance have been lucky this Spring, with two opportunities to see the work of Hofesh Shechter. In between rehearsals, Bachtrack writer Laurine Mortha caught up with him

With seven new productions under the title "Alles was Recht ist" (All things just) the Bayerische Staatsoper promises an exciting new season.

Thirteen years after its restoration - and at the grand old age of 140 - Sylvia might, at last, be free of her jinx. Discover the complex history of Léo Delibes' ballet, written here by Graham Watts.

Going from strength to strength under the leadership of Tamara Rojo, English National Ballet presents MacMillan's Song of the Earth as part of nationwide celebrations of the choreographer's formidable legacy. 

The Sleeping Beauty is perhaps the Ugly Duckling of Tchaikovsky’s three ballets. It was the second in the trilogy, completed in 1889, but has neither the dramatic thrust of Swan Lake nor the calorific sugar-coated charm of The Nutcracker in terms of popular appeal. 

Ask anyone who claims to know nothing about ballet to actually name one, the chances are it will be one of Tchaikovsky's, with Swan Lake high on the list.