I went to my first ballet performance as an adult in Dublin and it proved Timothée Chalamet wrong

Is ballet really a dying art form, as Timothée Chalamet suggested? From Cork to Dublin, Ciara Byrne finds modern audiences still feel connected to this ethereal art form 

The Oscar-nominated actor triggered a bigger conversation about ballet when, in a town hall conversation, he claimed, “no one cares about [ballet and opera] anymore”.

Sitting in the dimly lit O’Reilly Theatre in Dublin on a Wednesday evening, my first ballet experience since childhood proves just how wrong Timothée Chalamet got things in his comments about it being a dying art form.

As a former Irish dancer — no wigs or tan for me, it was all non-competitive with the occasional Fleadh eight-hand reel — this look into the professional world of ballet revealed a whole new perspective on the form for me.