30 years of Cork City Ballet: 'One thing dancers do not have is time'

From tour bus high jinks to funding problems, Alan Foley’s Cork City Ballet has weathered a lot to become Ireland’s longest running professional ballet company

Behind the scenes at rehearsals for Swan Lake. Picture: Miki Barlok

While the cast of Cork City Ballet’s 30th-anniversary production of Swan Lake are in intensive rehearsals for their opening night on the stage of Cork Opera House, there’s one man in particular who, despite the proximity of Tchaikovsky’s classic fin de siècle ballet to his heart, doesn’t envy the dancers their gruelling regimen.

Alan Foley, Cork City Ballet’s founder and artistic director, hung up his pointe shoes over 15 years ago in a dramatic forced retirement from his dancing career at 38, following a collapse and open heart surgery.