Ballet dancer Steven McRae: “I was getting a high from my workload”
Principal dancer with The Royal Ballet, Steven McRae, reveals he considered his huge workload a ‘badge of honour’ at one point, before an injury led him to re-evaluate his practice.
Speaking to Dr Gemma Harman, a senior lecturer at the University of Chichester, on her podcast ‘ResDance’, for which she recently won the One Dance UK Research Award (2025), Steven spoke about his experiences as a professional dancer, his catastrophic injury to his Achilles tendon in the middle of a performance, and how that led him to make changes to his own schedule as well as advocating for improved wellbeing amongst the dance community.
After starring in the recently aired hit BBC documentary ‘Steven McRae: Dancing Back to the Light’, which documents Steven’s journey with rehabilitation and return from injury, he reflects upon the revolutionary work of the Royal Ballet and the new sense of value he places on the role of scientific knowledge in dance.
“I was getting a high from my workload,” he said. “At one point I was working on nine ballets at one time. It was a badge of honour and of course I got a high from that – isn’t that the dream? But you can’t physically or mentally keep that up.”
“At a certain point you have to look at the culture of the dance and think about the physical limits. Navigating and managing workloads is something I really want to look at.”
Creator and presenter of the podcast, Dr Gemma Harman, said: “It was a privilege to speak with Steven and I am delighted my ResDance podcast could provide a platform for others to hear his thinking around practices within dance and a greater accessibility of health provision within the sector”
Australian dancer Steven McRae joined The Royal Ballet School on a Prix de Lausanne scholarship in 2003. He graduated into The Royal Ballet in 2004 and was promoted to First Artist in 2005, Soloist in 2006,First Soloist in 2008 and Principal in 2009.
To listen to the full interview, go to ResDance Series 8: Episode 4 on Spotify.
