Rupert Pennefather

Did you know that principal ballet dancer of The Royal Opera House, Rupert Pennefather, was once the underdog of Tring Park School for Performing Arts?

I had a chat to him over the phone to find out more and the story goes that he was always struggling with academic work and lacking in confidence but determination took him to the top.

After being assessed out of White Lodge – the Royal Ballet's school for gifted dancers - and expelled from Tring Park performing arts School, in Hertfordshire, one could say his journey to the world's most famous stage was an unconventional one.

“It was just after the second year at White Lodge when things changed. I liked the training but I was very home sick; I missed my twin sister a lot and it didn't feel like it was the right time for me to be in a boarding school. I was assessed out and ended up going to a normal comprehensive school in Maidenhead. I fell back in my training because I wasn't doing it every day, like I had been at White Lodge. Twice a week at the local dance school just wasn't enough, not if you are training to be a professional ballet dancer.

“I went to my parents and told them that I needed to go to another dance school. The fact that I was a dancer at a comprehensive school wasn't going down well with some of the other students there. I wouldn't say I was bullied, it wasn't anything terrible, but there were a few incidents and some people at the school who I was best off avoiding. It was around this time when I auditioned for Tring.

Rupert was among of the school's first submissions of boys.

“On my first day everyone was friendly and welcoming. I was surrounded by dancers and we thrived on encouraging each other.”

Tring Park was very different to White Lodge. It's curriculum was triple threat – dance, drama and music. Rupert settled into dance and acting classes but it was his academic career that was causing the problems.

“I think I was disruptive in class because my heart was only for dance. I wasn't doing so well academically. I was struggling in lessons because I had dyslexia. To me the learning disorder was a big thing. I made me impatient and gave me too much energy. It wasn't a good mix, not to mention that I was an immature 14 year old.”

Despite extra support from tutors Rupert fell behind in his school work and found himself in a catch 22 situation; the more he fell behind the more he rebelled; and he became nothing but a nuisance and eventually was asked to leave during his GCSEs.

“People at Tring were very supportive. Some of the other boys had the same problems as me and some of the dance teachers understood where we were coming from.

“There was a warm atmosphere at that school. I loved it and I didn't want t leave, it wasn't my choice to leave, I would have stayed.”

Rupert's notoriety as a disruptive teen was common knowledge and his dance began to suffer. By his own admission he was 'pretty average'.

“Well, I was asked to leave White Lodge (assessed out) so if anything there was a feeling of insecurity about my dance. I worked harder because I wanted to get better.”

Rupert attended senior associate classes at The Royal ballet School, in Covent garden once every two weeks: “I was scared when I left White Lodge that I would be forgotten about. I wanted to show them that I could get there. My main goal was to get into the upper school.”

But when he failed to audition for an end of year performance at Tring Park, it was the last straw.

“I was talking and joking around and generally not giving the teachers the chance to teach the other children in lessons and in the end, the school called in my parents.

“My last day was really sad. I remember waiting in the car while my mum and dad spoke to the head, who told them that they thought the school wasn't right for me. Looking back, it was probably the best thing to have happened because it gave me the opportunity to go into private lessons with Julie Rose, who was a soloist at The Royal ballet at the time. She gave me a lot of encouragement and made me believe in myself.”

Men's clubs and halls became Rupert's new locations for dancing in. Julie would hire them out, clear the tables, put a barre up and prepare the floor with cola to make them sticky enough to dance on.

A year of intense training with Julie involved daily workouts at the gym as well as ballet classes in preparation for the audition for the Royal Ballet's upper school.

“I hadn't seen the other boys from White lodge for three years by that time and I had to work as hard as I could because I didn't know what level their dancing was at,” Rupert explained.

“Maybe that was a good thing because I was imagining them to be amazing and perfect. Those thoughts inspired me to work as hard as I did.

“When I got into the school I automatically set myself a new target, which was to get into the company.”

Rupert joined The Royal Ballet in 1999, was promoted to first artist in 2004, soloist in 2005, first soloist in 2006 and principal in 2008.