Steven McCrae - Dancing back to the light

[Hallelujah2020]

Whether you like ballet or not this is fantastic documentary on what it takes to return for an almost career ending injury. And how physically and mentally tough ballet is.

on iplayer

Ah my mum was just telling me about this, it sounds really interesting. But also terrifying - what a horrible thing to experience. Amazing that he came back from it.

Ds and i went to the Alice in Wonderland Insights filming at the ROH. He gave a demostration on the Mad Hatter and talked about his injury. Ive been following him on Instagram every since. Must watch this.

It is beautifully filmed

I saw this on Friday night. I'm not a massive ballet fan, but DM is, so I've been sucked in by accompanying her to performances and live streams, and I do love Steven.

We saw Steven McRae in Alice in Wonderland towards the end of last year as a cinema livestream. I think they showed parts of the bbc documentary beforehand. There were parts that seemed very familiar. DM saw him in the original production in London in 2012(?).

The documentary really showed the rigours of being a professional dancer. In fact, I used to have a physio who was a retired ballerina.

This is what i mentioned above.

I loved this too. I've just read that he's back in Romeo this week. But since the documentary was made, he also snapped his ACL on stage, so he's just done his second lot of rehab.

It was interesting what he was saying about how they now use much more sports science, gym work etc, as for an athlete. A bit more detail would have been nice, but it was clearly mostly about his own emotions etc.
I did feel for his wife - she's not only given up her own career (tho presumably she chose to have 3 kids), but she has to live with a self-confessed obsessive who, although a nice chap, evidently has the ego one would expect from the superstar that he is 😂

Watching this

Pondering what did they do for money while he was recovering?

Did the wife choose to give up ballet when she had the children? Or did something else happen? As it sounds like she gave it up?

A long time to recover isn't it

She was also a dancer with the Royal Ballet, and she did go back to work after maternity leave, certainly the first one and probably the second as well - I can't remember. But having three kids in a family where both parents work such long and antisocial hours was never going to be easy. He's a Principal and she wasn't, so her career was the one to sacrifice I suppose, as he earned more.

I'd have been interested to hear more from her perspective, but maybe she felt it was too private for the film, and not immediately relevant.

I wonder how much they're paid

Couldn't help giggling when the coach (Leslie?) at one point went 'good boy, good boy' like he was a child!

^ Pondering what did they do for money while he was recovering? *

I imagine he had some kind of insurance?