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David Wall
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When David Wall was 18, people used to go to The Sleeping Beauty specially to see him. No big deal, you may think - we've seen teenage prodigies often enough; but Wall wasn't dancing the Prince, or even the Bluebird: he was the second of the four cavaliers who support Aurora in the Rose Adagio. Suddenly, in the middle of these characters - normally indistinguishable except to a loving eye - there was a real person walking about, excited to be there, reacting to his first sight of the Princess, partnering her as if he'd fallen in love on the spot. It was astonishing, and it was a perfect curtain-raiser to Wall's career. Whatever he was dancing, you always saw the person behind the dancer.David Wall was born in 1946 and trained at the Royal Ballet School. He had the good fortune to be taken into the touring Royal Ballet at the time when it was directed by John Field, who saw it as part of his responsibility not only to help him develop as a dancer, but also to widen his experience by, for instance, watching plays to learn how actors worked. Wall's first big leading role was in Ashton's Two Pigeons, which he danced with that lovely, and sadly neglected, classical dancer Alfreda Thorogood - a happy omen, as she later became his wife. Still in his second year in the company, and still in the corps de ballet, he danced Siegfried during the company's Covent Garden season - in fact he was virtually leading the company by then. His charm and good looks (he had - still has, I expect - red hair) made him a natural for roles like Colas, but his most unexpected success came in de Valois' The Rake's Progress - John Field thought it would be good for him to try something too difficult for him, but in fact he produced one of the most intensely dramatic performances the role has everhad. By 1966 Wall had been promoted to Principal - the youngest in the company's history. From then until 1970 he was one of the acknowledged stars of the touring company - the other being Doreen Wells; their partnership was far better known and more popular outside London than the contemporary Sibley/Dowell pairing in London. His most important creation in those years was the leading role in the last ballet Antony Tudor made for a British company, Knight Errant - unfortunately, as he actually missed the première through injury, there isn't a single photograph of him in the role.
It is, incredibly, already more than 12 years since David Wall retired, at the far too early age of 38 - to allow others, he said, to get the same sort of early opportunities that he had himself. For a time he was a director of the RAD, and he's now the ballet master of English National Ballet. He would be a perfect role model for any young dancer. Although in his younger days he could do triple tours en l'air, he wasn't famous as a virtuoso - what made him great, for me, were the humanity he brought to every role, even in plotless ballets, and the absolute integrity of his dancing. Paradoxically, the highest praise I can think of is that watching him at his best you forgot he was dancing.
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