St Mary’s Signs Partnership Extension with The Royal Ballet Company

St Mary’s University, Twickenham is pleased to announce a three-year extension to its partnership with The Royal Ballet Company and The Royal Ballet School to deliver Sport Science and Strength and Conditioning support services to these highly prestigious and world-renowned dance organisations.

The extension to the partnership, which began with the Covent Garden-based company and School in 2016, includes the exciting recruitment of a new three-year full-time PhD studentship under the supervision of Dr Charles Pedlar and Matt Springham to investigate the quantification of workload in elite ballet dancers.

This research will inform the physical preparation strategy employed by the Royal Ballet dancers in order to promote health and performance and reduce injury and illness risk.

The continued partnership sees the University’s academics provide Strength and Conditioning and Sport Science support to The Royal Ballet’s 100 world-class ballet dancers, as well as designing bespoke programmes to enhance dance performance and recovery after injury.

Dean of Faculty of Sport, Health and Applied Science (SHAS) at St Mary’s University Prof Symeon Dagkas, said, “I am delighted we have renewed this exciting partnership with two world-famous institutions and even more delighted that we are able to offer a truly unique PhD studentship to work with such incredible dancers. I am very excited to see how this partnership grows and develops over the next three years.”

Clinical Director for The Royal Ballet Greg Retter, said, “Following a successful initial two years of delivering Sports Science services, the ROH are pleased to confirm both the extension of the original contract to three years, as well as extending our partnership with St Mary’s University by funding a PhD studentship. This makes for exciting times as together our three institutions progress the development of Dance Science to support the health and wellbeing of the dancers of The Royal Ballet and The Royal Ballet School across this widened remit.”