The Royal Ballet
In Frame
The Royal Ballet
Behind the curtains with the world's foremost ballet company
"Audiences see the finished performance. What they rarely see is everything that surrounds it."
In Frame is a series of photo essays that takes you backstage at Esplanade through a photographer’s perspective. This inaugural essay comes from Crispian Chan, a well-loved photographer in Singapore’s art scene known for his keen cinematic eye.
In this photo essay, he goes behind-the-scenes of The Royal Ballet Gala, staged at Esplanade Theatre as part of da:ns focus – Ballet by the Bay in June 2026. This performance marked the return of the world-renowned Royal Ballet from the UK to Singapore after 21 years, and starred acclaimed ballet artists in a gala performance specially curated for local audiences.
As someone who spends most of my time photographing theatre and contemporary dance, I’ve always been just as interested in what happens backstage as what happens under the stage lights.
Being invited backstage to photograph The Royal Ballet Gala at Esplanade was a real privilege. Audiences see the finished performance. What they rarely see is everything that surrounds it.
Dressing rooms and corridors give way to blue working lights, black masking legs and narrow wings. Every now and then those black curtains part, opening briefly into a burst of stage light before closing again.
Watching performers pass through those openings, I’ve often imagined them as portals. On one side is the private world backstage. On the other is the stage and the imagined world of the artists.
That’s what has always fascinated me backstage. It’s a place that sits in between. It’s no longer rehearsal, where ideas are still being worked through, but it’s not quite the performance either. Dancers arrive from one world and disappear into the other. Some are quietly gathering themselves before an entrance. Others have just come offstage, catching their breath before melting back into the rhythm backstage. Around them, stage crew weave almost invisibly through the same space, keeping everything moving.
It reminds me of Sats, a Norwegian term that theatre director Eugenio Barba uses to describe the performer’s state of readiness just before action. A state that is felt by all performers across many forms and cultures. Not every photograph in this essay captures that exact moment. Some look at what happens immediately afterwards instead. What interested me wasn’t a single instant, but the crossing itself. That continual movement between shadow and light, between backstage and stage, between performer and performance.
These are often the moments that stay with me long after the curtain comes down. They’re quiet moments that audiences rarely get to witness, but performers know intimately. This photo essay is simply an invitation into that world, where, if only for a few fleeting moments, performers belong to neither world, suspended between who they are and who they are about to become.
