Joe Powell-Main in Conversation

Joe Powell-Main ‘In Conversation’ with Deborah Weiss

August 11th, 2025

Susan Dalgetty-Ezra, chair of the London Ballet Circle, welcomed Joe Powell-Main, a young disabled freelance dancer and choreographer who has made quite a name for himself. Born in rural Wales, he trained there and progressed, via Associate programmes, to White Lodge but his time at the school was cut short by injury. He found his way back to dance through Latin and Ballroom competitions for wheelchair users and a Performing Arts degree, in due course becoming the first wheelchair and crutch using company member of Ballet Cymru. He continues to grow in his career as a freelance dancer and choreographer. Susan also welcomed writer and critic Deborah Weiss who would lead the evening’s conversation.

Deborah commented that it was a real privilege to be talking with Joe, starting the conversation by asking about his introduction to dance and how it had become his career. He responded that apparently even as a small baby he had always moved to music. As a child he developed a keen interest in theatre, with both he and his sister watching productions on tape. Then, at about four or five, he was taken to an English National Ballet production of Swan Lake which really fired his interest.

Although living in an isolated area of rural Wales his mother was able to find a dance school in which she enrolled both Joe and his sister. In due course his teacher at the school suggested that Joe might find especial interest in ballet – but only if his father was in agreement. Apparently she had taught other boys with potential talent but whose fathers could not accept their sons pursuing such an artform….. Fortunately Joe’s father agreed – ‘whatever makes him happy’.

He did ballet classes twice a week, together with other dance styles such as tap and modern, but came to realise that it was ballet which really enchanted him. The music, the costumes, the ability to tell a story without using words…. Joe admitted that the Billy Elliot story probably had its effect, as it did on many boys at the time. And so his parents and teacher started to look at the possibility of training at the Royal Ballet School (RBS). He auditioned for and joined the Junior Associate programme, the local centre for which was in Birmingham, more than two hours away. He initially opted to go every other week but was soon asked to come every week. In his final year he also participated in a similar programme at Elmhurst.

His sister was by this time boarding at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts and she regaled the family with tales of life there, which made Joe think again about his way forward. While on the Junior Associates programme he had the opportunity to perform with Birmingham Royal Ballet in both The Nutcracker and Sylvia, and it was while taking part in the latter that he was called for his final audition at White Lodge.

Joe recalls being quite awe-struck by White Lodge itself; particularly with the ritual of touching an index finger of Margot Fonteyn’s statue for luck. Nevertheless, he felt that the RBS could work for him and looked forward to hearing whether he had been offered a place. Mail was not always delivered swiftly in that part of Wales but eventually his mother brought the letter when she picked him up from school – he celebrated by running around the car park, as he says ‘screaming’….

Joining White Lodge involved boarding, a concept new to Joe to which he did not entirely look forward to. Although apprehensive and rather nervous, however, he realised that this was his best chance of getting into what he saw as his desired career of dance. That was mature of you, commented Deborah, wanting to know more about his time at the school. He replied that for the first time he had found himself among a group of like-minded youngsters, all with similar aims and interests – and indeed, the first time he had taken part in classes consisting solely of boys. He also looked forward to the opportunities which the RBS could offer, for instance, performing in The Nutcracker on the Opera House stage.

He had been there for just a couple of months when the swine flu epidemic struck; classes dwindled and eventually the school shut down for a short while. Joe himself was unwell and home-sick, so went home. He recalls that tutors were worried that there would be insufficient time to prepare students for the upcoming Nutcracker. Due to being in his first year he didn’t get cast as a party child, with those roles going to students in the years above him. He did portray a toy soldier in the battle scene and as one of the smallest boys, he became a page to the Sugar Plum Fairy and was selected to offer the necklace (for Clara) to her in the second act. His first Sugar Plum and Prince were Miyako Yoshida and Steven McRae, and he recalls being so much in awe – starstruck – at being on stage for his first technical rehearsal, with such great dancers he fell apart completely and messed it all up. It happens, he was told by his RBS teacher, Hope Keelan, but Joe determined that nothing like that should happen again.

Joe was particularly interested in choreography and the RBS annual competition. He was fascinated by the Tudors, and wanted to choreograph The Celebration, a piece about Henry VIII which would have involved a mixed group of dancers. Unfortunately, the exigencies of casting meant that he could only have a male cast; nevertheless he was able to make the piece work. Dr Susan Cooper, his choreography teacher, had later complimented him, telling him that he had dealt very well with the casting difficulties – a compliment which he had really appreciated. His relationship with Dr Cooper continued even after he had left White Lodge.

His second year at White Lodge brought more opportunities, although he was even more home sick. He had a new teacher, Antonio Castilla, and learned that his body was hypermobile, good for dancing but requiring somewhat greater care and maintenance. He was also told that he had ‘short Achilles’ and needed to practise jumping, which he loved.

For some of this time Joe felt that he was being rather overlooked; that perhaps he was not the sort of dancer the school wanted. However, he was considerably buoyed up when Liam Scarlett featured him in a piece which he was bringing back to the school. There was also Nutcracker and Matthew Hart’s Peter and the Wolf. This latter piece is danced entirely by students, with just two ‘adults’ – The Grandfather and The Wolf – in Joe’s case they were played by Will Kemp and Sergei Polunin. Originally cast as a wall (!), due to other dancers’ injuries etc Joe eventually appeared on stage as a Huntsman. And in another piece, by Antonio Castilla, he understudied for a first cast dancer who got injured just before the show, leaving Joe once again to perform the role on stage. With essentially no rehearsal, in a role involving several lifts which Joe had not before experienced.

The third year brought new challenges; more home-sickness, another new teacher, his body changed and he grew a lot which meant that he had to work hard to maintain his technique. One bright spot was the dance-drama he performed before royalty as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

In his fourth and final year at White Lodge, Joe found himself back with his second-year teacher, who offered favourable comment on the improvement in Joe’s performance. However, he was still struggling somewhat with his growth changes and, four or five weeks into the term, did a jump and his right knee ‘popped’ – which he knew did not sound right. Patellar tendinitis was diagnosed by the school physiotherapist and he was told to rest until after half term. Slowly being reintroduced to class and activities, Joe missed out on a piece to be performed for Prince Charles (as he then was) at Buckingham Palace. As this was a piece, he had taken a role in when first created at the school, he was considerably disappointed.

And then, getting to his feet after one of his academic classes, his left knee suddenly let him down completely leaving him almost unable to walk. Still a relative youngster, it was difficult to explain the nature of the problem and, coupled with being far away from home, he found the situation most challenging. Eventually he went home and visited an orthopaedic surgeon, where a pad of fat behind the kneecap was discovered. The presence of this pad compromised the positioning of the leg bones, also pinching nerves which was the primary reason for the extreme pain he had been suffering. Quite simply removed, he was told, but it was instead decided to try to rehabilitate the knee joint without operation.

Sadly that rehabilitation was not successful, with the result that at about 14 he had to have surgery to remove the fat pad. By this time Joe was unable to bend his knee and he had to use crutches. There was slow improvement and he thought he might be on the way back to freer movement and dancing. However, the RBS made the decision that he should not return, and that seemed the end of his career in ballet.

It was about this time the car accident took place. His mother observed a motor cyclist travelling too fast towards their car and decided to take evasive action by turning into the verge. Unfortunately however, the cyclist still managed to collide with the front of their vehicle, from where he was thrown along the road and fatally injured. Although relatively unscathed, Joe suffered considerable trauma from the incident, often causing him to stutter and to feel very unsure when not with his family.

The decision by the RBS, the trauma of the car accident, and his ongoing disability rendering him ever more reliant on his wheelchair, all added together to impact most severely on Joe’s mental health. The fact that his friends continued to train at White Lodge he also found challenging, such that he decided to open a new social media account which would completely separate him from his dancing life.

So what now? Joe was attending an Education Centre two days a week and later became home-schooled, but he lost a great deal of time through all the challenges and ended up with just two GCSE passes. More importantly, however, he also came to realise that, deep down, he was missing dance. Visiting his sister at Move It, his mother saw a leaflet for wheelchair users taking part in dance classes and wondered whether this might be a way for Joe to move forward. So he enrolled in some classes, going on to win medals in Latin and Ballroom dancing. This led him to the Arden School of Theatre, in Manchester, where he gained a degree in Dance and Performing Arts – back to ballet, together with other dance disciplines.

One of the many people he got in touch with at this time was Marc Brew, another disabled individual who has made a career out of being a wheelchair dancer. Although Joe never met Marc Brew in person, he had always been most supportive, in due course suggesting Joe might find a home with Ballet Cymru. He attended a summer school with the company and was offered an apprenticeship the following year. This must have been an enormous change in your life, said Deborah, offering a much more positive future.

In the last 18 months you seem to have achieved so much, said Deborah. Working with Northern Ballet, a piece with Kristen McNally, Festival Dos Canais in Portugal…. Joe explained that he had been feeling limited and underused at Ballet Cymru when he was invited to participate in a dance sequence celebrating, at Wembley Stadium, the homecoming of the Paralympic team. This was in 2021, the Paralympic Games of 2020 having been postponed for a year because of the Covid pandemic.

The organising committee had approached the Royal Ballet, Kevin O’Hare had expressed interest in collaborating, and this resulted in Joe’s first contact with Kristen McNally. Together they co-created the piece, with Joe experiencing again the pleasure of being able to choreograph not just on himself, but on other dancers. The delight of this experience and the success it achieved enabled him to consider whether he could successfully pursue a career as a freelance dancer.

Joe went on to work with Royal Ballet dancer, Isabel Lubach, performing The Sleepwalker at the Royal Ballet Draft Works in 2022. The piece was directed by former Royal Ballet Principal and now Artistic Director at RAD, Alexander Campbell. Just before the show Isabel became infected with Covid and another partner for Joe had to be found – and eventually Kristen McNally, who was choreographing the piece, decided that she would have to do it herself. The piece was then scheduled for inclusion in the 2022 Greenwich Festival, but due to the death of the Queen, all performances were cancelled. It was not until the following year that it was reprised, at Greenwich, with Isabel in the role as originally intended.

A range of jobs flowed from that point. He continued to work with the Royal Ballet on some of their Learning and participation programmes; he has choreographed a version of the Balcony Scene to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the company’s Romeo and Juliet; there was Empower in Motion, a fund-raising gala at Sadlers Wells Theatre; the Director of the Greenwich Festival Bradley Hemmings invited him to take part in their sister festival in Portugal; there has been work with Northern Ballet….

As a result of these various commissions Joe realised that life might be better organised by founding a small company, and thus JPM Productions was formed, in which he now assumes responsibility for all the administration (with huge help from his Mum) as well as artistic arrangements. He describes JPM Productions as a ‘product-based collective’ aiming to bring dance to a range of diverse communities. He wants to showcase online work which has already been accomplished. Joe has obtained some funding, including from the Arts Council, and is preparing a short version of Giselle amongst other things... He has worked with New Works Ballet Theatre in Bristol, for whom he played Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights and will go on to take part in Hansel and Gretel for the same company.

Joe believes that as a disabled dancer he must work especially hard to keep his name in the spotlight; as a freelance artist he wants his work to become as well known as possible. He considers that through his successes he could put disabled dance on the map, trying to advocate for accessibility. Although sometimes it feels as if ‘you are fighting for everything’. Contemporary dance may present less of a problem because there is not the ‘image’ of the perfect body as exemplified by the classical ballet dancer.

He feels privileged in that he experienced that initial Royal Ballet School training, but fears for youngsters who may become disabled much earlier in life – where and how can they pursue dance as a career? Money can be a problem; Joe requires a support worker (often his mother, who clearly helps him a great deal) and companies can explain that they do not have the budget for such support. There is much more to be done!

In concluding the evening, Susan, chair of the London Ballet Circle, responded enthusiastically that Joe clearly possessed a most dynamic personality and it had been another fascinating and enlightening discussion. She thanked both Joe and Deborah most sincerely for a wonderful evening’s conversation.

Trevor Rothwell 13-08-25