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Marcelino Sambe - principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. photographed at Royal Opera House, London
Marcelino Sambé, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. photographed at the Royal Opera House, London. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Observer
Marcelino Sambé, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. photographed at the Royal Opera House, London. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

Marcelino Sambé: ‘Ballet should not be just for elite kids’

This article is more than 4 years old
It’s a fairytale: the young dancer in a poor Lisbon suburb who makes it to principal at a world class company. But more underprivileged children should get a chance, says the Royal Ballet’s rising star

“My earliest memory of dancing,” Marcelino Sambé says, “is of being at a community centre for children from troubled families, in Alto da Loba, on the outskirts of Lisbon, where I was born.” We are talking in an office at the Royal Opera House and Sambé is sitting down, sometimes wrapping his arms around himself, looking at ease in his body in the way only a dancer can – with out-of-the-ordinary grace. The director of the Royal Ballet, Kevin O’Hare, announcing Sambé’s recent promotion to principal dancer, highlighted “the most wonderful personality” that endears him to audiences and company members alike. Critics are easily slain too: agreeing about his athletically ebullient stage presence. And inevitably, as the second black male dancer to reach the Royal Ballet’s top ranks, he is compared to Carlos Acosta and, like the Cuban star, he has come a long way to reach the heights.

“That community party,” he goes on with his story, “was a real dancefest – everyone would bring their own cakes and drinks and we’d dance. I was four years old and remember noticing people’s thrilled faces, watching my rhythmical movements. I was lucky enough to be born into a neighbourhood of African immigrants from Guinea and the Portuguese colonies. I knew dances like kizomba and funana – all the African rhythms.”

It was the community centre’s psychologist who first suggested Sambé become a professional. “Maria Rosa was an incredible friend and always took care of me. She said: ‘You live dance, you breathe dance – do it. You can do it as a career.’” At the time, he had been watching Fame on television and that clinched it: “I want to be at a school like that,” he thought. (He adds that, later, Billy Elliot would be part of what inspired him to come to England.) He was eight when he auditioned for the National Conservatory in Lisbon and the audition did not, at first, go well: “It was hilarious. I showed up in tracksuit and trainers, didn’t know what ballet was. The atmosphere was sterile, the other kids were preppy and well prepared. I was nothing of the kind. But I could do the splits and I remember I kept doing the splits repeatedly [he laughs].” The panel was not impressed. “Then came the special moment when they asked us just to dance. They played Scott Joplin and I used that as my inspiration to do African dancing. I remember the freedom of it. I performed what I knew, gave my big smile and the judges were enthused.” The African dancing (and, presumably, the smile) got him in.

‘You have to be proud of who you are’: Sambé photographed at the Royal Opera House, London. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

Shortly after that audition, Sambé’s father died and the Lisbon Conservatory arranged for Marcelino to be fostered: “I had loving parents but, unfortunately, they could not take care of me. After my dad passed away, it was too much for my mum to take care of me and my sister.” It is clear he would prefer not to elaborate but he dutifully volunteers: “I’m still in touch with my mother, although we’ve grown apart. I’m very aware of how she is doing.” He was fostered by Fernanda and Manuel Barroso and “quickly became a real member of their family. They introduced me to the world of art and music and inspired me to pursue my dreams. My [foster] sister Maria was also at the Lisbon ballet school and helped so much, taught me to stay focused.”

Looking at Sambé today, he is completely poised. And he tells me something extraordinary. When he is in the wings of the Royal Opera house waiting to go on, he is not the slightest bit nervous. And that is because “I feel very prepared”. Instead he is “centring” himself. His only fear is of “not giving everything I have to give.”

In 2009, Sambe won the Youth America Grand Prix and, in 2010, a gold medal at the USA International ballet competition. He won a scholarship to the Royal Ballet Upper School, graduating into the company during its 2012-13 season. Within four years, he had become a first soloist, and within six, a principal dancer. In the last season, he played Basilio in Don Quixote (directed by Carlos Acosta) and Blue Boy in Les Patineurs and the third movement of Balanchine’s Symphony in C. In April, he graduated from Mercutio to Romeo and was the lead in Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern (about the refugee crisis). Hofesh Shechter, who choreographed Untouchable for the Royal Ballet, a piece in which Marcelino created his own role, sees him as a “quick, adaptable dancer, with a cheeky spark in his eyes” and suggests that what makes him so promising ispraises the “total engagement and energy” he brings to his work. But how important does Marcelino himself believe his ebullience is – and how much does personality affect dance? “Oh my God – totally! You see how someone really is, the seed of who they are on stage – it’s very exposing. Your heart is open and vulnerable. I feel all my past experiences – and how I got here – give layers to my dancing. And dancing has given me so much joy, I want to share it.”

Sambé does not altogether believe in his own publicity. He wants to set the record straight, to explain what happens when the sun goes in. For just after he became a first soloist in 2017 he got a deep stress fracture in his shin and had to stop for six months. “I’d not been aware of my limitations, I’d thought I was Superman. And my body was like: Hello?! I think you need to reconsider, think about your limitations, learn to grow. There are so many talented boys and men around and you think: I need to keep swimming upstream because, if I stop for a second, I’ll be taken by the stream.”

He was devastated at not being able to dance on stage: “I had so much darkness in me. I can be quite dramatic. My personality goes every way: I have a huge smile but when I’m dark, I’m dark.”

Slowly, he began to see the injury as an opportunity to “refine” his work. There is a first-class health care team at the Royal Ballet and he had a coach, Brian Maloney, a former company dancer, who “got me up on my feet so patiently. We’d go back to first position. Wrong! Tendue. Wrong!” I thought: how am I ever going to get back to being a light, jumpy dancer? But now, I’m so grateful to the physios who took care of me. And I caught up with who I want to be as a person. I caught up with friends, I worked on my relationships.”

Marcelino Sambé in Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern at the Royal Opera House in May. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Sambé’s openness includes a willingness to talk about and celebrate his homosexuality. In 2018, he even did a video outside the Opera House to promote Gay Pride month: “They put a flag outside for the first time to mark Gay Pride. It was so important. After all, the history of LGBTQ people here has been immense.” Sometimes, he imagines what it would have been like to be a gay ballet dancer in the Opera House’s past. To my surprise, he admits to feeling “nostalgic about the 60s and 70s – as if I’d been there in a previous incarnation.” He imagines a time of “more mystery” and “complicated magic” while acknowledging it must have been “painful for gay men deep in their hearts”.

“You cannot fulfil your potential if you are not allowed to be 100% yourself. You have to be proud of who you are.” He frequently mentions, though he does not name, his partner (they live in north London). Is he a dancer? “No, a lawyer. We have completely different backgrounds but lead busy lives and have similar schedules and that helps.”

Sambé reels off a typical Royal Ballet schedule: 10am to 11.45am ballet class. 15-minute break, then five or six hours of rehearsals. He finishes at 6.30pm – or at 5.30pm if he has a show. He admits it is “exhausting” but explains the Opera House is full of “dancing machines with the stamina needed for full-length ballets”. It matters to him to try and lead a normal life – and he believes it possible if you “crack the code”. This involves “friendship” with everyone (he messages his friends during his short breaks). And he tells himself: “You’re not the nucleus – everyone’s life matters.”

Sambé is proud to be associated with Carlos Acosta, but believes there is a more urgent issue to address than diversity at the Opera House: “What matters is that ballet should not just be for elite kids from well-fed families. And black kids with talent need to be nurtured from a very young age. A lot of time and effort was put into me. I was difficult as a child. I was often not prepared to come to class, did not have the right kit, did not do the homework. But the teachers had a special place in their hearts for me, understood I came from a troubled background and needed their support.” Funnily enough, he goes on to hail Acosta as being one of those teachers, albeit later in life: “I’ve worked with Carlos intimately – when we were doing Quixote, he made me feel I could do it. He made me trust the process and be patient.”

Next year, Sambé will dance Siegfried in Swan Lake and Franz in Coppélia. He says he loves the way the Royal Ballet is as much about acting as dance: “I’ll be thinking: OK, I can do an incredible step, but how am I going to do it?” And as a principal, how will he do – or be – that? “People say that when you become a principal, you have to change. I’m wondering: how can I make it different?”

It is hard to imagine how Sambé finds time for it but it turns out that he is also an ambitious choreographer (he was chosen for Youth Dance England’s Young Creatives scheme in 2012). He believes opportunities to choreograph will materialise “if I put in the effort.” He dreams in particular of creating an Othello, with music by Nico Muhly. “A ballet of Othello has never been done at the Opera House,” he exclaims. You can see Marcelino Sambé is on a high of the sort that can only be achieved by exceptional talent and hard work. Is there anything he would want to change about his life? “I have many moments when I think to myself – how lucky am I to be able to do what I love, have an incredible partner, friends and a supportive family. There is nothing I want to change – although there are a lot of things I’d like to change about the world – but that’s different.”

Marcelino Sambé dances in Manon (as Lescaut), 9 and 12 October; and in Concerto, 22 and 26 October, Royal Opera House, London WC1

More on this story

More on this story

  • Romeo and Juliet review – star-cross'd magic from Matthew Ball and Lauren Cuthbertson

  • Royal Ballet: Les Patineurs, Winter Dreams, The Concert review – dreams and misdemeanours

  • Les Patineurs / Winter Dreams / The Concert review – festive cheer and tears at the Royal Ballet

  • The Nutcracker review – in every sense a delight

  • Royal Ballet: Bernstein Centenary review – McGregor and Wheeldon at the top of their game

  • Bourne's Red Shoes and Khan's Giselle triumph at National Dance awards

  • Ashton at the Royal Ballet review – miraculous moves and romantic rapture

  • Royal Ballet mixed bill; Rambert review – Liam Scarlett's new ballet was worth the wait

  • Royal Ballet mixed bill review – Scarlett and Yanowsky deliver a mesmerising melodrama

  • Royal Ballet triple bill review – five stars for Crystal Pite

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