Dame Beryl Grey  officially opened The Glory of English Ballet in June 2011, with Colin Jones' seminal collection of photographs of The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Northern Ballet. Great ballerinas and dancers are captured in all the sheer hard work and magical glory combined: Tamara Rojo, Daria Klimentova, Christopher Doyle, Lynn Seymour, Margot Fonteyn and of course, Dame Beryl Grey herself.  Invited by Flora Smith and Alan Smith of the TopFoto Gallery, Dame Beryl was full of praise: “They’re terrific photographs. They give you a feeling of being backstage; all the agonies and the nerves before a performance and the relief…. he’s captured every emotion a dancer has.” After 100 guests and collectors had viewed the prints, Dame Beryl and Colin Jones regaled their audience with anecdotes of touring with the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet. Though today leaders in their different fields, in the 1950s Colin Jones was a junior dancer in the corps de ballet while Dame Beryl was thrilling the world as a soloist at Covent Garden and as the first western artist to appear with the Bolshoi Ballet. There are even a few images of the Kirov and the Bolshoi, it's impossible to put together an exhibition of ballet without including a few of Colin Jones' early pictures of the great Russian schools.

You can see a glimpse of the opening event here: http://bit.ly/ner3Ai with Dame Beryl Grey and Colin Jones in conversation. And a slightly longer version here: http://youtu.be/T9FbM_MEp8I

The exhibition runs until 26 August and for every print sold (handprinted, signed by the photographer, from £300) TopFoto Gallery will donate £25 to Dame Beryl Grey’s favourite charity, GSDR (German Shepherd Dog Rescue), gifted in the name of the buyer.  See more at the BBC VIDEO: Photographs of a 1940s ballerina BBC News

Tamara Rojo rehearsing Swan Lake, copyright Colin Jones/TopFoto.co.uk All rights reserved.

Barbara Remington. Copyright Colin Jones/TopFoto.co.uk All rights reserved.