Wayne Eagling 依格靈

Princess Diana’s favourite dancer, Wayne Eagling, was for many years a principal with the Royal Ballet. I met him in Hong Kong in 1997 where he was creating a new work, ‘The Last Emperor’, for the Hong Kong Ballet, then under the directorship of Steven Jeffries. Re-visiting this now I am fascinated by what he says about dealing with the challenge of making that transition from dancer to deskbound director. He had always been a creative dancer, so choreography was nothing new, but, as director of the National Ballet of Holland, his first job after being an active dancer, there had been a challenging period of adjustment. One thing you should not attempt, he warns, is to be a dancer/director.