David Peden

Introducing david peden…

David was trained at the Royal Ballet School from the age of thirteen, and subsequently joined the Royal Ballet, becoming a Senior Soloist where he danced many principal roles. Among his extensive repertoire were the Young Man in Ashton’s Two Pigeons, Symphonic Variations, Blue Boy in Les Patineurs, Colas in La Fille Mal Gardeé; Robin’s Afternoon of a Faun; George Balanchine’s Rubies lead man, Agon, Symphony in C 3rd movement lead man,The Four Temperaments; the Bluebird & Florestan in the Sleeping Beauty, Franz in Coppelia; Glen Tetley’s Voluntaries Pas de trois; William Forsythe’s Steptext; David Bintley’s Galanteries and Consort Lessons; Kenneth Macmillan’s Beggar chief, Dancing gents in Manon, Friday Night and Sweethearts in Elite Syncopations.

David also performed with the National Ballet of Canada as a first soloist, Pacific Northwest Ballet, British Ballet Columbia and English National Ballet. He had roles created on him by Ashton, MacMillan, Lubovitch, Canniparoli, Deane, Corder, and Page to name a few.

After retiring from the stage he successfully gained a distinction from the Royal Academy of Dancing Professional Dancers Teaching Course, after which he worked as Ballet Master for the Ankara State Ballet Company and Singapore Dance Theatre. Following this, David was employed and taught all levels at the Royal Ballet Upper School for fifteen years, and was primarily responsible for the second year boys until December 2014. He staged Les Patineurs and Macmillan’s Concerto for the annual performances of the school, and played an instrumental role in rehearsing many of their performances throughout the years.

In early 2015 he embarked on an international freelance career and travels extensively as a result.

2015 - 2021
Engagements include The Royal Ballet; American Ballet Theatre; National Ballet of Canada; Zurich Ballet; Dutch National Ballet; National Ballet of Portugal; English National Ballet; Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures Company; Ballet Black; New Zealand School of Dance; Master classes in Tokyo, Miyazaki and Sendai; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; Basel Theater and Basel Ballet School; Cape Academy of Performing Arts, Cape Town; English National Ballet School; Canada’s National Ballet School; Andrew McNichol Collection; ABT-JKO; The Royal Conservatoire in The Hague; National Ballet of Brno, Czech Republic. Cape Town City Ballet; Salzburg Ballet Company.

In addition, David is the Artistic Advisor for The Gailene Stock CBE Memorial Award in Japan, a workshop over a three-day period culminating in selected students receiving a summer school scholarship to either the New Zealand School of Dance, the Australian Ballet School, Basel Theater School, Canada's National Ballet School, Royal Conservatoire Den Haag and Yorkshire Ballet Seminar.
The inaugural award took place in Tokyo on 29th April 2016.