Spain dances to different tune with a new national ballet

• Venture aims to stop loss of homegrown talent
• Socialists and royals back move but funding private

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Tuesday October 3, 2006

The Guardian

Spain is to try imitating the success of Britain's Royal Ballet by establishing a national classical ballet company to tap a well of talented dancers who have been forced abroad.

Tamara Rojo, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet, is reportedly being targeted as the new artistic director of a company that is backed by everyone from Spain's royal family to the socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The country is unique in western Europe in not having a national ballet company.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1886067,00.html