{"id":11591,"date":"2021-05-14T13:30:01","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T13:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=11591"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:24","slug":"denzil-bailey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2021\/05\/14\/denzil-bailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Denzil Bailey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Denzil Bailey<\/strong><\/h2>\n

London City Ballet<\/strong>
\nEnglish National Ballet<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\"DenzilDenzil Bailey, a dancer of Jamaican descent, started dancing at 17 in a jazz class, which took place in a Cricklewood, London church (Bourne 163). He then trained with a grant from the Brent Council at the London School of Classical Dance from 1982 to 1985 (252). During this time, he also participated in the National Youth Dance Company.<\/div>\n
While Bailey was still training, Harold King, the artistic director of London City Ballet, grew to know the young dancer and would occasionally ask him to step in as a corps de ballet member for the company.<\/div>\n
After graduating from London School of Classical Dance, Bailey performed in The Jazz Show<\/em>, a cabaret in Norway.<\/div>\n
After a \u201cgruelling [sic] ordeal\u201d acquiring a contract with London Festival Ballet\u2014for about three weeks, he was asked to come in for class without the promise of a job\u2014Bailey was finally hired (253).<\/div>\n
Bailey claims his technique wasn\u2019t \u201cmega strong\u201d (despite repeatedly being told he was \u201cquite good\u201d during his audition process), so he was rarely cast as a lead in classical ballet roles and instead in contemporary ballets.\u00a0 He was featured, with a long solo, in Olga Roriz\u2019s Salome<\/em> in 1993, but for an entire season performing Sleeping Beauty<\/em>, Bailey was stuck in minimal roles due to a personal grudge that artistic director Derek Dean allegedly had with the dancer (254).<\/div>\n
After 10 years with the company, Bailey moved on to freelance work before co-founding and serving as ballet master of Ballet Black.<\/div>\n
As an instructor, Bailey teaches open classes and for various companies like Ballet Black, Rambert Dance Company, Neo Ballet, Random Dance, Tavaziva, and Skanes Dansteater. In 2020, Bailey became a guest tutor for the third-year boys of The Royal Ballet Upper School.<\/div>\n
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