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Alexander Jones studied at the Royal Ballet School in London from 1997 for eight years. In 2004, he successfully participated in the then Adeline Genee International Ballet competition where he was awarded the gold medal & represented Great Britain in the Eurovision young dancer competition, Warsaw (2005).
In 2005, he graduated from the Royal Ballet School, joining the Stuttgart Ballet where he became principal dancer and danced all of the classical and narrative ballet repertoire. After ten years in Stuttgart, he changed companies and joined the Ballet Zurich as principal dancer until 2023.
During his time with Ballet Zurich he had his debut as an actor in the feature film 'Written on Water' with co-actors Aurelie Dupont & Pontus Lidberg. Today, you can see Alexander as a featured dancer in the new tv series 'Etoile' on Amazon Prime.
Outside of his artistic engagements, Alexander is a certified INSEAD executive & leadership coach, offering his clients a creative coaching blend for personal & professional development.
Alex Jones: It started by trying different things and being open to new opportunities. I think if you’re not open to exploring different avenues during a transition and haven’t taken advantage of any opportunity that comes your way, you miss out on valuable experiences. You don’t have to enjoy every opportunity, but just give it a try, because when it comes to the actual transition, this openness makes you more receptive to whatever becomes available.
For example, I teach spinning and never thought I would enjoy indoor cycling, as I’m more of an outdoor person. If I want to play sport, I tend to go outdoors. Speaking engagements were about being open to trying something new. A friend invited me to Amazon Web Services to speak about my career, which was another opportunity I embraced. Additionally, being willing to have a side hustle is important - not necessarily to earn extra money, but to expand your network. Something as simple as working in a bar can introduce you to many different people.
Alex: If I’m really honest, I have multiple answers to this question. COVID definitely allowed me to think outside the box and experience what it would be like not having ballet in my day-to-day life, every day, six days a week. That was a significant game changer for me and gave me the space to think differently. However, I think the underlying feeling was already there before the pandemic - I gradually felt myself becoming a bit removed from the ballet world.
When I left Stuttgart Ballet, I was a little burnt out and wasn’t looking to join another big classical company the same size as Stuttgart Ballet. At the time, I told myself it was because I didn’t want to be in another competitive classical ballet company where I had to prove myself again, but in reality I think this was already an indication that I didn’t want ballet to be the only part of my life, leaving no space for anything else. I was still in a bubble for the first few years, but it changed pretty quickly, and spinning was one of the first things that really helped me with that.
Even though it was still very intense in Zurich with rehearsals and the schedule, there weren’t so many performances, which allowed me to be in a more international city and socialise more outside of the company. Slowly, I found myself developing more interests outside the ballet world. Also, at a certain point in my career, I felt like I’d “done it”. For me, ballet wasn’t a specific childhood dream or anything - it was always something I did because there were these amazing opportunities.
As dancers, we will always be pleasantly surprised to realise that we can fit into such a range of different fields and industries. You realise that you do have something to contribute.
Alex: Yeah. And that’s the thing - you can plan as much as you like, but quite often something just comes along, and you have a go at it. Whatever plans you’ve made, the road often ends up going in a different direction, and then you end up following that, which opens up so many different things.
Alex: I thought about this a few times, and I think the biggest struggle was not leaving dance itself, or even leaving the stage. It was leaving the environment. Every morning you go in and you have your people, and a lot of it is non-verbal, but you can just feel this unity in the studio. In Ballett Zurich, for sure, and also with my previous company, it really felt like a family. I’d say in Zurich, on many levels, even more so because it was smaller and tighter. We had a group that spent time together, and shared in both the difficulties and the good times. Everybody supported each other.
So I think more than anything, I missed coming in every day and knowing that I was going to share something with my friends again that day. I felt supported, and even when something was going on outside, like a breakup or the loss of a family member, we all had each other’s backs, and that was amazing. You only realise the depth and the significance of that when you leave. Walking in in the morning and seeing the same person at the barre, greeting each other with a simple “All right, mate,” is something special. That’s all it takes to know that you’re there for each other that day. We literally lived and breathed together on and offstage. It’s such a beautiful thing to have, and most people never get to experience that.
Alex: I always had this underlying anxiety throughout my career about the time when I would have to transition. In general, I have this way of taking on whatever structure means for me that day. I have jobs where I’m really working 100%, whether it’s on the TV series Etoile in Paris or as a counsellor with The Kusnacht Practice. I’m good at turning up each day, being there, and being ready.
In between times when I don’t have a paid job, I’m still working for myself, whether that comes in the form of reading or working on my website. I’m consistent every day, doing something in the direction of where I want to go. When it comes to coaching or counselling, you have to lead by example. It doesn’t mean being perfect every day, but having consistency in every area of your life. It might sound boring, but it doesn’t have to be.
I think maintaining structure outside the ballet world is key because that discipline is so ingrained in us. Some people take a couple of years off to seek freedom from that structure after feeling constrained by the ballet world. However, we all have enough strength and discipline to bring ourselves back and be successful in whatever we decide to apply ourselves to. I don’t have a strict daily schedule; I do things when I feel they need to be done and try to tackle the big tasks a little each day. I prioritise accordingly.
For example, I did a nine-month course with INSEAD (Institut européen d’administration des affaires), which was an executive and leadership coaching course. There were obviously certain assignments and deadlines, and I managed to complete about 70% of the required work two to three weeks in advance, then spent the next 14 days refining the language and details. That’s just how I function, and I think most dancers are good with deadlines, they’re good with showing up.
Alex: First of all, I'm really grateful to the Opernhaus Zürich for their financial help because there's no way I could have done this course without the transition fund they started.
INSEAD is an international business school. I did the “Executive Coaching for Leadership Development” certificate. They apply a particular model of coaching, and it was certainly quite challenging. I learned a lot about managing anxieties and expectations, working with different characters, and how to work with the "disruptor in the room”. It was very interesting and it also tied in so well with where I had come from.
I wanted to be thrown into a world I wasn’t familiar with, yet I was pleasantly surprised that I found my footing so quickly. I think as dancers, we will always be pleasantly surprised to realise that we can fit into such a range of different fields and industries. You realise that you do have something to contribute. I haven't yet encountered an environment yet where I feel I have nothing to add.
I refer back to the ballet world on so many occasions. The ability to walk into a room and get a sense of everyone's feelings is so transferable.
Alex: The most difficult part is being able to juggle different roles and ensuring you’re in the right place at the right time, putting the pieces together. For example, I knew that one of the modules from my course would overlap with filming for Etoile, and fortunately, they were accommodating. In the ballet world, if something like that happens, directors are often so inflexible, which I always found unreasonable because dancers need to transition. Directors should provide opportunities for dancers to pursue things outside their day-to-day jobs, whether it’s study, nonprofit work, or speaking events. However, too often, dancers encounter resistance from directors, even when it could be beneficial.
As for the multi-hyphenate life, I personally love it. I’m still taking on new things; if something comes up that I haven’t done before and is slightly different, I embrace it. Currently, I have maybe five different income streams - not all at once, but sometimes overlapping. I love the diversity and range because it allows me to step into various roles depending on what I’m doing. For instance, as a counsellor, it’s more support-focused, but I can also implement coaching elements. The type of coaching I do has to do with emotions - it’s a particular model which looks at various roles within an organisation and the dynamics between managers and teams. It’s really interesting, and a lot of it ties in nicely with the ballet world.
Then on another day, I’m instructing spinning, I’m motivating people on a spin bike, counting them in to the drop in the music, and tapping into a more wild side of myself. Then, in a TV shoot setting for Etoile, I’m the dancer again. I’m fortunate to still have this connection with the dance world.
Alex: I refer back to the ballet world on so many occasions. The ability to walk into a room and get a sense of everyone's feelings is so transferable. You can see how people are feeling and interacting, if they’re looking forward to the choreographer, and the cliques within the company. I've thought about how to integrate that into team building events to get to know people and their dynamics. There are so many transferable skills from the ballet world into coaching and team dynamics.
Alex: Within the city that you live in, wherever it might be, I guarantee that people like artists, and people want to be around artists. So keep yourself informed about other things that might interest you and then talk about them in social settings so that not every conversation is just about you as a dancer. If you're a well-read person or if you're interested in other things, keep those interests up, speak about them. And also, I would suggest accepting every invitation, because you never know who you're going to meet. Turn up, go to events, go to different things, look out for other things that interest you.
Also, it takes practice to be in a social setting and you only get better at it by doing it. And it does come more naturally to some people but I think everybody can become good at it. I think if you just stand there in a room and you look around, at some point you do meet other people's eyes. And it takes between five and eight glances for somebody to have the confidence to come and approach you across the room. It also has a lot to do with body language: do you have your arms folded? Are you on your phone? If you're on your phone, you're in another world. And so many people take their phone out because they're alone, and then you shut yourself off from possible connections.
Alex: Our awareness of the body is such a strong skill. I think when you become more aware of it, you realise how well dancers move in a room. It's so ingrained in us but it’s such a standout thing. Also, we’re not shy of bringing something different to the table. I mean, we're so often confronted with different choreographies and different ways of moving. We’re used to having to adapt. If you think about the way we learn steps, this way of putting information together is like the accumulation of data, which we then build upon and layer. Then we add stylistic details and movement qualities on top. I think that complex and nuanced way of learning is a great skill.
I also think resilience is a huge plus that dancers have, because we keep going when many people might no longer be able to.
Alex: I felt anxious about the career change very early in my career because I was just always aware that it was coming. I’ve been fortunate, but I was only fortunate because I prepared myself in so many ways. I don't mean by officially studying; I knew I wasn’t one of those people who could have managed university on the side. But I prepared myself in different ways, and I think we all have to think about it at some point. But I would say don’t allow it to consume your mind too much.
If the question is consuming you, then start to do something about it early. That can just be showing interest or reading and being interested in something outside of ballet. If you don't have anything, which I think is probably very rare, or you’ve just forgotten because of how all-consuming the dance world is ... I would say think back to what your parents told you you liked to do when you were four years old. Who were you as a child? Were you an outdoors child? Did you like climbing trees? Did you like doing jigsaw puzzles? Did you like colouring? Whatever it might have been, try to go back to whoever that young person was and relate to that person. Think back: who were you before something like ballet took up so much space in your mind? What else did you enjoy before that?
The author Robert Greene talks about the importance of that, of getting back to who you inherently were before you became your job. I would really recommend his book Mastery, because he touches on the concept of mastery and how you can branch out from that. For all of us, ballet is a mastery - we’ve been through years of ballet training every day. And it's not just ballet, but your knowledge of your body and your spatial awareness is your mastery as well.
Alex: I advise not to leave it too late. I knew I wanted to do something else and didn’t want to be a ballet master. I’m not saying end your career early because of it; enjoy it. But start showing interest elsewhere early on because the later it is, the harder it gets.
Opening your mind early, even if you’re not taking the actual steps yet, will help a lot. For dancers still in ballet school, consider taking summer jobs. I used to work in a kitchen, in a local pub, and in a fish and chip shop. Doing normal jobs and learning from them is beneficial. Even while in school, participating in galas and taking summer jobs can broaden your experience.
There’s a really good book called Range by David Epstein, which talks about how people can succeed by having diverse interests before going into a more specific branch; he uses Roger Federer as an example, who was playing a whole range of sports alongside tennis before zeroing-in on his specialty later on. So I think having as many interests as possible is really helpful - it’s certainly helped me throughout my ballet career and continues to help me now outside of it because I’m not afraid to try new things.
I just think there’s so much to do in the world, so why not try things? Try it at least once and see how it goes - in fact, I would advise always trying something twice.
Top image by Jos Schmid
