Tamara Rojo’s British career moved between two of the country’s leading ballet companies: Scottish Ballet, English National Ballet and, from 2000, The Royal Ballet. As a dancer she took on a wide repertoire, from Juliet and Giselle to roles in works by Kenneth MacMillan. As artistic director of English National Ballet from 2012 to 2022, she backed new work alongside the classical repertory. Her work in Britain was one chapter in a career that began in Spain and later took her to the San Francisco Ballet, where she became artistic director in 2022.
Training in Spain, a career in Britain
Rojo was born in Montreal, Canada, on 17 May 1974, to Spanish parents who returned to Spain with her when she was four months old. She began dance classes in Madrid at five and became a full-time student at the city’s Royal Professional Conservatory of Dance, Mariemma, at 11. Alongside her studio training, she continued academic study through evening classes. She graduated from the conservatory at 16 and completed her secondary education over the following two years.
In 1991 she began her professional career with the Ballet de la Comunidad de Madrid, directed by Víctor Ullate. Three years later, she won a gold medal at the Paris International Dance competition, as well as a Special Jury Award. In 1996, Galina Samsova invited her to join Scottish Ballet. There she danced principal roles in works including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, La Sylphide and John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet.
Derek Deane, then artistic director of English National Ballet (ENB), invited Rojo to join the company in 1997. He created the roles of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Clara in The Nutcracker for her. The Times named her “Dance Revelation of the Year” that year. Her ENB repertoire also included Swan Lake, Paquita, Coppélia and Glen Tetley’s The Sphinx.
Principal dancer at The Royal Ballet
In 2000, Rojo approached Royal Ballet director Anthony Dowell about joining the company. When a contract became available later that year, she was invited to become a principal dancer. Over the next 12 years she performed major roles across the repertory, including ballets by Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan, Dowell’s Swan Lake, Natalia Makarova’s La Bayadère, Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote and Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker.
Her roles included the title character in Giselle, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Manon and Mary Vetsera in Mayerling. Choreographers also made work specifically for her: she danced in the world premiere of Ricardo Cué’s Snow White, and Deborah MacMillan recreated the title role in Isadora for her. Across the companies where she performed, her repertoire ranged from classical works to contemporary pieces such as Wayne McGregor’s Chroma and Akram Khan’s Dust.
Several serious injuries tested the physical demands of her profession. In 2000, she stepped in at short notice for the injured Darcey Bussell in Giselle, learning the role in a fortnight despite a sprained ankle. In 2002, after dancing Clara in The Nutcracker, she was diagnosed with a burst appendix. She returned to dancing after two weeks, despite being advised to take six, and was subsequently hospitalised again. Rojo later said that continuing to dance while ill or injured was wrong and not worth the risk.
In 2003 an infected bunion left her foot severely swollen as she prepared for the Royal Ballet’s Australian tour. Surgery might have ended her career; after rehabilitation, she returned to dancing. The experience changed her perspective on her body and work. She and her father later developed a device to stretch pointe shoes and reduce pressure on bunions, forming a company to market it in 2017.
Leading English National Ballet
Rojo became ENB’s artistic director in 2012, while continuing as a lead principal dancer with the company. Her decade in the role included a broadening of the company’s repertory through commissions and re-imaginings as well as performances of established works. For Akram Khan’s Giselle, she commissioned a new interpretation of the story. The production brought recognition to its choreographer and leading dancer Alina Cojocaru, while ENB received an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance.
Rojo also commissioned and presented work that connected ballet with history. Her own choreographic debut, a version of Raymonda inspired by Florence Nightingale and set during the Crimean War, premiered at the London Coliseum in January 2022. Earlier, in 2016, ENB performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris, the first time the company had been invited to dance there. Rojo presented two BBC documentaries about ballet: Good Swan, Bad Swan: Dancing Swan Lake in 2014 and Giselle: Belle of the Ballet in 2017.
Rojo left the ENB artistic directorship in 2022. In the same year, she took up the equivalent role at San Francisco Ballet, becoming the company’s first woman artistic director. Her career therefore spans performance, choreography and leadership on both sides of the Atlantic, but her ten years at ENB form its most substantial period in British institutional leadership.
Honours and a wider artistic record
Rojo’s honours include the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), awarded in 2016 for services to ballet. She received the South Bank Sky Arts Outstanding Achievement Award in 2022 in recognition of her decade leading ENB, and Spain’s Gold Medal of the Academy of Performing Arts in 2021. Earlier distinctions included the Prix Benois de la Danse in 2008 and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production in 2010, for her collaboration with choreographer Kim Brandstrup on Goldberg: The Brandstrup-Rojo Project.
Her career also reflects sustained study alongside performance. After her dance training and secondary education, she pursued further degrees, including a bachelor’s degree in dance and a master’s degree in scenic arts. She completed a doctorate in performing arts at King Juan Carlos University, graduating summa cum laude in 2016. The combination of stage experience, formal study and direction informed a career that has not been limited to performing established roles: she has also commissioned choreography, developed productions and taken on the responsibilities of running a major company.
Why Tamara Rojo deserves a place in British Legacy
Rojo’s place in British Legacy rests on a substantial, identifiable contribution to the country’s ballet life. She came to Britain as a young professional dancer, joined Scottish Ballet in 1996 and ENB the following year, then became a principal dancer at The Royal Ballet in 2000. Those years placed her in the repertory of major British companies and brought her into close creative work with choreographers and directors. Her roles ranged from Juliet and Giselle to parts in MacMillan’s ballets, while new creations such as Snow White showed that her work was not confined to inherited repertory.
Her leadership at ENB adds a second strand to that legacy. From 2012 to 2022, she led a company that commissioned new interpretations, including Akram Khan’s Giselle, and presented Rojo’s own Nightingale-inspired Raymonda. ENB’s appearance at the Palais Garnier in 2016 marked a notable international stage for a British company. These examples show how leadership can connect a national institution with artists, audiences and ideas beyond its borders. Rojo’s career offers British audiences both performances within a rich existing tradition and new work that tests how that tradition can develop. Her influence in Britain is grounded not in a general claim about cultural prestige, but in the roles she danced, the productions she helped bring into being and the decade she spent directing ENB.
Sources
Adapted in part from Tamara Rojo by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.