Time & Perspective Quote by Deborah Bull

There is a quiet flex in the way Deborah Bull makes discipline sound like a casual errand. "I do take class because I still dance" reads like a simple explanation, but it’s really a line in the sand: artistry isn’t a title you keep on a shelf, it’s a practice you maintain with your body, daily, whether or not the public is still applauding. In ballet, class is both training and ritual, the place where technique gets rebuilt from the ground up. Bull’s phrasing insists that the fundamentals aren’t remedial; they’re the job.

The second half sharpens the subtext: "yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time". "Slip into" is doing a lot of work. It suggests discretion, even a hint of mischievousness, as if she’s ducking backstage not to reclaim status but to stay plugged into the living current of the form. It’s also a deft acknowledgment of hierarchy. The Royal Ballet is institutional prestige, a gatekept ecosystem; dropping in is both an act of belonging and a refusal to be defined by formal membership. She’s not announcing a comeback, she’s asserting continuity.

Context matters here: dancers age in public, and their careers are routinely narrated as arcs with neat endpoints. Bull rejects the neat ending. The intent isn’t nostalgia. It’s credibility: the authority to speak about dance - as a performer, director, commentator, whatever comes next - comes from still doing the work, sweating in the same room as the next generation.