Ballet

I started dancing when I was two. I have a two-year-old daughter now, and I can tell that she will be a dancer. She just loves rhythm; in fact both my children are dancing around the house all the time. I imagine I was like that when I was a child.

My mum had a school-friend who worked for a newspaper and she used to get tickets for the ballet every now and again, which she would often pass on to my mum. So from the age of about seven, I used to go to Covent Garden Opera House or Sadler's Wells with my mother. Those were the days when a visit to the theatre was a complete
evening out.

Because I was doing ballet at that time, to see dancers on stage was just incredible. I would sit there in row four, thinking, "I so want to be on that stage." I loved the music, too — Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev are so sombre and commanding. The orchestra really opened up my imagination — at ten years old, the music was making me think: "What's it like in Russia?"

So when I went back to my dancing school, I would work really hard. When I was about ten I saw the Royal Ballet performing A Midsummer Night's Dream. My mum and I watched Puck and thought: this man is the most amazing dancer, we must remember his name. So I wrote it down: Wayne Sleep. Then years later he was in the original London production of Cats, and became the best known ballet dancer in
Britain.

What is it that distinguishes a dancer? Well, it's the same with singing — it's that magical emotion that somebody has on stage. The technical aspect is clear — you can see the turn-out of their legs, how high they leap.

I remember Wayne Sleep seemed to hang suspended in the air, like an atom. But more than that, it was the passion with which he danced; as if his life depended on it.

I had the passion, but I didn't have the technique, and so I quit ballet lessons. My first job after school was dancing on Top of the Pops, and I absolutely hated it. It was what we call "teeth and tits syndrome": you were chosen purely by your physical appearance.

One of my favourite troupes is the Dance Theatre of Harlem. My first experience of seeing them perform, 25 years ago, was the first time I had seen black people dance — even today they are the one ballet company who attract a genuinely mixed race audience. It has such a diverse programme: from traditional ballet to Native American dance. Their shows are often issue-based, so there's an educational side to
it as well. Whether it's Dance Theatre of Harlem or Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker, I love ballet for its marriage of passion and precision.