Ballet is for everyone to enjoy, director says

The Birmingham Royal Ballet has defended its artform after actor Timothée Chalamet made disparaging remarks about it.

Marty Supreme star Chalamet recently said "no-one cares" about ballet and opera anymore.

Paul James, chief executive officer at BRB, said the comments had given people in the community a chance to talk about why they all valued it.

"We have a whole community of opera, ballet lovers, participants, saying no, no, I care and it's allowed us to have that conversation of just how important it is," he said adding without them we probably would not have musicals or theatre.

BRB was founded in 1946 as the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet before moving to Birmingham in 1990.

Chalamet had been talking to fellow actor Matthew McConaughey at the University of Texas in February about efforts to preserve cinema when he made the comments.

"I don't want to be working in ballet or opera or things where it's like, 'Keep this thing alive even though no-one cares about this any more'," the actor said.

"All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.

James told BBC Radio WM it was important to understand the classical dance was an "elite sport".

"Whether you're an opera singer or a ballet dancer, you're committing your life as like an elite athlete, to create the very finest thing you can do," he said.

James described ballet as "telling stories without words, just through the emotion of music and dance".

He said average attendance for the company last year was more than 1,500 tickets per show, with productions also performing well when touring overseas but said ballet could be wrongly seen as "elitist".

"When you look at our audience, everybody comes. That's the great thing about Birmingham, everybody comes," he said.

He added: "Whether it's ballet or rugby... Go see it and you'll know."

"It's so much fun, it's joyous."

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.