Reece Clarke

Early life and training Clarke is from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire. His father was a steelworker and Clarke's mother worked as a child minder. He is the youngest of four brothers. Clarke began ballet at age three. This marked the first time four boys from the same family attended the school. The school provided a scholarship, while the Airdrie community helped fund his tuition and equipments. The following year, he won the Lynn Seymour Prize. In 2014, Clarke performed his first major role, in Ashton's Symphonic Variations. Clarke was covering the role, but was cast to dance opposite Marianela Núñez after a dancer dropped out. Later that year, he originated a role in Edmonds' Meta. He won the Emerging Artist Award at the 2016 National Dance Awards. Other roles Clarke debuted in his early career include the Prince in The Nutcracker, Prince Florimund in The Sleeping Beauty, the First Officer in MacMillan's Anastasia, as Antigonus in Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale, in After the Rain and McGregor's Obsidian Tear. That year, he originated a role in Scarlett's Symphonic Dances. In 2019, Clarke filled in as Des Grieux in Manon, when Steven McRae got injured mid-show, resulting in Clarke having ten minutes to prepare before performing with Akane Takada, whom Clarke had never danced with. In June, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Clarke and Fumi Kaneko danced the second movement pas de deux from MacMillan's Concerto for an online performance. In October, at the first full company performance since the pandemic, Clarke and Kaneko danced Marston's In Our Wishes.

In March 2022, Clarke appeared in a gala benefitting the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal at the London Coliseum, performing Balanchine's Tchaikovsky pas de deux with Núñez. Two months later, he danced in Royal Ballet's special performance of Swan Lake, also to raise fund for DEC, in which the lead roles were split among several dancers. Clarke danced as Prince Siegfried in the fourth act, opposite Osipova. As soloist and first soloist, Clarke had also performed as Albrecht in Giselle, in Ashton's Monotones, Enigma Variations, and Scènes de Ballet, and Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour.

In May 2022, the Royal Ballet announced Clarke's promotion to principal dancer, which took effect at the start of the 2022/23 season.

Personal life As of 2019, Clarke lives in Chiswick, West London. In 2025 he was one of the sitters for Sky TV's Portrait Artist of the Year.