Dream big, ballet star Tamara Rojo tells schoolgirls

Rojo, the artistic director and lead principal dancer of English National Ballet, said both male and female role models are important for girls to believe they can fulfil their dreams
Hopes: Tamara Rojo and Kathy Lette on the Eye with 12-year-olds Maisha Khan and Jasmine Wilson
Alex Lentati
Miranda Bryant9 October 2015

Ballet star Tamara Rojo today urged schoolgirls to “dream big” and said women are often not ambitious enough.

Rojo, the artistic director and lead principal dancer of English National Ballet, said both male and female role models are important for girls to believe they can fulfil their dreams.

Her call came as she joined 200 influential women at a “speed mentoring” event for girls aged 11 to 18 on the London Eye, to mark the UN International Day of the Girl as part of Southbank Centre’s WOW — Women of the World — festival.

Rojo, 41, who was with the Royal Ballet for 12 years, said: “Dream as big as you can, most of the time you will be able to achieve it.”

She added that women — particularly female choreographers — are often “not ambitious enough … they don’t feel they have the right to wish for big, so they tend to come with very humble requests for career plans.” She said she does not know the reason for some women under-aspiring, but suggested: “We are less confrontational by nature and don’t want to upset anybody, don’t want to upset the status quo.”

Rojo, who lives in Bloomsbury, said girls “need encouragement” from both male and female mentors as well as their parents. She added: “So often the answer is no, it’s not possible, you can’t do this, the alternative is not an option — the opportunity to balance their hopes with views of outsiders, that kind of encouragement that maybe what you want to do is possible or that you just have to go about it a different way.”

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Next year English National Ballet is putting on She Said, a triple bill featuring top female choreographers Aszure Barton, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Yabin Wang, at Sadler’s Wells. Rojo said she hopes it will inspire women to “dream big because they see someone else dreaming big.”

At today’s event other mentors included author Kathy Lette, Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, actress Adeleyo Adedayo, MP Stella Creasy and presenter Gemma Cairney, who has also produced a film for WOW about British schoolgirls.

The WOW festival, which includes debates, concerts, films, and workshops, runs from March 8 to 13. Tickets on sale at southbankcentre.co.uk/wow

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