Tzu-Chao Chou

Born: Yi-Lan, Taiwan

Trained: Australian Ballet School

Joined: 2011; Principal, 2017

Awards: Gold Medal, Asian Pacific International Ballet Competition, 2003.

Other companies: Australian Ballet (2005-11).

Guest performances: Le Spectre de la rose as a guest Principal with English National Ballet (2009); Fall for Dance Festival, New York; Frederick Ashton's Les Patineur (Blue Boy) with Cape Town City Ballet; La Bayadère (Solor) with NTUA.

Created roles: The Tempest (Pan) and roles in Jessica Lang's Lyric Pieces and Alexander Whitley's Kin.

Favourite ballet score: It would have to be Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. The music really takes you on a journey.

Most rewarding role: Symphonic Variations – you’re on stage from the beginning to the end.

Dance hero/heroine: Mikhail Baryshnikov and Sylvie Guillem – they still inspire me every day to be a greater dancer.

Career if not a dancer: Perhaps a pianist or interior designer, or maybe even a horticulturist.

REPERTORY INCLUDES

With Birmingham Royal Ballet

Carlos Acosta: Don Quixote (Basilio, Amour)
Frederick Ashton: The Dream (Puck), La Fille mal gardée (Colas, Alain), Symphonic Variations and Les Patineurs.
David Bintley: Aladdin (title role,The Djinn of the Lamp), The Prince of the Pagodas (King of the East, Fool), Beauty and the Beast (Raven), Far from the Madding Crowd (Tumbler), Flowers of the Forest, E=mc² ('Celeritas²'), Faster, The Tempest (Pan, Ariel)
David Bintley and Galina Samsova:Giselle ('Harvest pas de deux')
John Cranko: Pineapple Poll (Jasper)
Jessica Lang: Lyric Pieces
Kenneth MacMillan: Concerto (First Movement), Elite Syncopations ('Alaskan Rag'), Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio)
Goyo Montero: Chacona
Juliano Nunes: Interlinked
Valery Panov: Liebestod
Alexander Whitley: Kin.
Peter Wright: Coppélia (Franz), The Nutcracker (Prince), Swan Lake (Prince Siegfried), The Sleeping Beauty (Prince Florimund, Bluebird)

With Australian Ballet

August Bournonville: The Flower Festival in Genzano
Nacho Duato:Por vos muero (Spanish music from the 15th and 16th centuries)
Wayne McGregor: Dyad 1929
Dame Peggy Van Praagh:Coppélia (Franz)
Jerome Robbins: The Concert (Shy Boy)

Header image: Clothing and styling generously supplied by UK dancewear specialists Dans-ez