The Royal Ballet Season 2016/17 at the Royal Opera House revived some very memorable moments for me.

As always I was fortunate enough to relive the magic of Nutcracker through Drosselmeyer, the tragedy of Tsar Nicholas II in Anastasia, I finally made my debut in Marguerite & Armand as Father on stage with the incomparable Alessandra Ferri and the thrill of dancing with one of my all time favourites, a dear friend and colleague, Zenaida Yanowsky in both Mayerling and Marguerite & Armand, the latter sadly being her farewell performance from the Royal Ballet on 7th June 2017, almost made my year complete. But nothing beats the adrenaline rush of dancing and even at the tender age of 47, I was lucky enough to experience the beautiful emotions of Part I 'I now, I then' plus tackle the extraordinarily difficult challenges in Part II 'Becomings' of Wayne McGregor's masterpiece Woolf Works that we not only performed at the Royal Opera House this season but fortunately also at Queensland Performing Arts Centre Brisbane, Australia during our international foreign tour in June 2017.

As if that wasn't enough, I was also involved in launching Liberty Christmas Nutcracker themed windows, a private 'Beauty' inspired Van Cleef event at the Tate Modern, I was Drosselmeyer in Sir Peter Wright's 90th Birthday performance of Nutcracker and I worked alongside some amazing artists in two fabulously interesting Ashton Rediscovered events organised by the Ashton Foundation. I had many more additional extras to the season and am very grateful for all the wonderful opportunities during season 16/17.

We’re now into Season 2017/18 and I have already had the great privilege of presenting to 5,000 people, a live relay to 2 big screens in Queens Gardens, Hull of a Royal Ballet Gala especially created to celebrate the reopening of the newly refurbished Hull New Theatre, I’ve also been asked to return as a guest with Perm Ballet (the last time being in April 2015 in St Petersburg) to star as Tybalt in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo & Juliet in Bahrain on 12th November 2017 to celebrate the 5th Anniversary of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s National Theatre. Details available here

I will also be involved in the live relay screenings at the cinema this year starting with, the Duchess in Christopher Wheeldon’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ on 23rd Oct and Drosselmeyer in Sir Peter Wright’s ‘The Nutcracker’ on 5th December 2017. Details available on this ROH page.

All of that plus, keep an eye out for me in the newly released DVD of Wayne McGregor’s stunningly beautiful Woolf Works, filmed January 2017 and Sir Peter Wright’s 90th Birthday celebration DVD of The Nutcracker, filmed Christmas 2016.

Thank you all for being so unbelievably supportive, kind, generous and patient with me and I look forward to seeing you all during this new season.

Gary x