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Oliver Rydout
Available to sponsor
1) What is your favourite ballet ? Or role?
Artefact by William Forsyth is the favourite ballet that I've seen. My favourite role was Colas in La Fille mal gardée.
2) How do you relax away from the studio?
By going out for dinner with friends with a good bottle of wine.
3) What was the last film you saw? Did you enjoy it?
The Wrong Turn. It was a trashy horror film, and wasn't especially good but it made me jump!
4) What is your favourite meal/type of food?
Sushi as well as Borscht and Caviar. My favourite place to eat is a little cafe on Queen Margaret Drive called North Star as the food is wonderful and the staff are great fun.
5) Do you find it easy or difficult to get out of bed in the morning?
Very difficult. I am usually very moody in the morning!
6) What made you take up dance as a career?
I've been dancing since I was very young. When I was two, my mother used to play classical music in the house and I used to dance about the place.
7) Which is your favourite ballet company? – aside from Scottish Ballet of course
The Bolshoi in Moscow but I also have a soft spot for The Royal Ballet as that was where I trained.
8) What is or has been your favourite venue to perform in?
In Britain, the Edinburgh Festival Theatre is the best to perform in but also the New National Theatre in Tokyo as it is so enormous. I performed there between 1998 and 2002 when I was with the New National Theatre Ballet.
9) What is your greatest extravagance?
Clothes and holidays. A couple of years ago, I went away four times in the year: New York twice, Greece and Cyprus. I only managed to go to Cyprus this year, to see my brother.
10) Tell us about your impromptu performance with NDT2 at the Theatre Royal last year
I was sitting in the audience and during the final piece, they picked a few people in the audience to go on stage and happened to pick me. We had to improvise and I let rip. I actually got a standing ovation and was asked for my autograph on the way out!
Biography
Born in Cheshire, Oliver studied at the RoyalBalletSchool and joined Scottish Ballet in 1992. His roles with the Company included Colas in Ashton’s La Fille mal gardée, the Second Principal in MacMillan’s Diversions, Benvolio in Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet, Gurn in LaSylphide, John in Peter Pan and the Peasant Pas de deux in Giselle. In 1998, he took a leave of absence to dance with the Asami Maki Ballet and the New National Theatre Ballet in Tokyo appearing as the Prince in The Nutcracker, the lead in Roland Petit’s A L’Italienne, Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsaire pas de deux and roles in Ashton’s Cinderella and Birthday Offering.
He rejoined Scottish Ballet in 2002 and has since danced in Page’s Cheating, Lying, Stealing, Walking In The Heat, The Nutcracker (The Nutcracker Prince), Cinderella (The Prince), Soft Underbelly,32 Cryptograms, Fearful Symmetries and The Sleeping Beauty, van Manen’s Two Pieces For Het, Forsythe’s Artifact Suite (Duet I), Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Agon and Episodes, Ashton’s Façade and Pastor’s In Light And Shadow.
Quotes
The Sleeping Beauty (2007 – 2008)
.Evening Chronicle, 22nd February 2008 – The Doctor, Oliver Rydout was highly pleasurable and sometimes amusing to watch.
SPRING 2006
Balanchine’s Episodes
. Sunday Herald, 9 April 2006 – Soon Ja Lee and Oliver Rydout lend lofty grandeur to the central duet.
CINDERELLA 2005-2006
Page’s Cinderella
. Leopard Magazine, December 2005/January 2006 - Individual dancers like Claire Robertson, Patricia Hines, Diana Loosmore, Oliver Rydout and Jarkko Lehmus shone…
AUTUMN 2005
Page’s Walking in the Heat
. Ballet-Dance Magazine, October 2005 – Luisa Rocco and Oliver Rydout gave a sensual performance of Walking in the heat.
SPRING 2005
Ashton’s Facade
. The independent, 19 April 2005 – Rydout’s Dago seether with fury as he leads Tatiana Loginova…
Page’s
Walking in the Heat
. Dance Expression, June 2005 – Soon Ja Lee and Oliver Rydout are stylish and exact in their partnership.
CINDERELLA 2004-2005
Page’s Cinderella
. The Sunday Times, 9 January 2005 - …There is something particularly pure and lovely about Soon Ja Lee and Oliver Rydout, her in a sparkly tutu, him in maly white tights, making light work of one of the most demanding and best-loved duets in classical ballet.
AUTUMN 2004
Van Manen’s Two Pieces for HET
. Inverness Courier, 5 October 2004 – Two Pieces for a HET, again incredibly well danced by the very gifted Tomomi Sato, as ever, an absolute delight to the eye, and Oliver Rydout, and he, though eye-catching in see-through leotard and thong, is much more than a mere foil to her skill and grace.