Simone Clarke, principal dancer with the English National Ballet. Photograph: EMPICS
It may come as a shock to dance fans to discover that Simone Clarke, principal dancer with English National Ballet, is a member of the British National Party. Ballet is a diverse and international business, and ENB's ranks are composed of artists from all over the world; 36 year-old Clarke herself is the partner of Yat-Sen Chang, a Cuban dancer of Chinese extraction.
Clarke's stated concern, however, is about immigration, which she says "has really got out of hand". Many will find her situation contradictory, but in fact it represents the deeply divided feelings of many Britons on this issue. Writing in the Evening Standard yesterday about the conviction of the two Muslim Somalis who murdered policewoman Sharon Beshenivsky, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, herself an immigrant, talks of "the many crises this year over asylum arrivals, ineligible or fake claimants, Immigration Service paralysis and Home Office ineptitude".
Britain is currently in the grip of an identity crisis, and while some Britons, like Alibhai-Brown, have the skills to comb out the many strands of the argument, others simply follow where their anger and frustration lead. The BNP is a legal organisation, but its membership is encrypted, and perhaps this secretive element attracted Clarke as a performer (she is a memorable Giselle and Juliet). Life in a ballet company is hard, and many dancers view themselves as a Spartan elite in a decadent, couch-potato world - a view that chimes harmoniously with far-right attitudes.
Many will rush to judgment on this issue, but Clarke's situation is complex, and should be viewed as such. Right now, I suspect that she wishes she were the Dormouse she portrays so touchingly in ENB's Alice in Wonderland - able to shut her eyes to the whole thing.
