Eric Underwood | Travelling the World with The Royal Ballet

0:00You're listening to Travel Secrets with Tanya Rose, the podcast that shares wisdom for fellow travelers.

0:09Welcome to Travel Secrets with me, Tanya Rose, the podcast sharing wisdom for fellow travelers. Each week, I ask my guests to reveal their six travel secrets and the holidays and adventures that surround them. I would just like to say thank you to Mason Rose, the sales and communication agency that represents some of the finest hotels around the world for partnering with Travel Secrets, the podcast. Today, my guest is the wonderful Eric Underwood, ballet dancer, actor, model, soloist at the Royal Ballet for over 10 years. His exceptional talent has taken him all over the world and I cannot wait to hear his travel secrets.

0:49Welcome. Thank you for having me. It's so wonderful to meet you. As a huge ballet aficionado, I know all about you. I know all about your life, but I cannot wait to hear more. So perhaps before we go into your travel secrets, you can tell us a bit more about yourself and how travel has impacted that person you've become. Sure. I, um, well, as you know, I'm a ballet dancer. I am recently turned a farmer and, um, I think, well, someone asked me a while back saying like, what's one, well, my niece asked me, what's one thing you could recommend? And I said, you know, school is great and it's good to educate yourself.

1:28I've never learned as much in school as I've learned traveling. So I feel like traveling is something that's really shaped me as a person. And whether that's just a holiday or actually moving somewhere and recreating myself. And you did move when you were quite young, didn't you? I did. I moved at 13 years old from Washington DC to New York City to ballet boarding school and I survived. So tell us the story about how you became a ballet dancer, because I love it. It's so wonderful. So I had quite a pushy mom. She really pushed me. And we come from very humble beginnings. So she wanted me to go to the local school that was a performing arts school.

2:07And she took me to the library and got a monologue about a kid in a wheelchair. And I learned this monologue. And then I got there for the audition and I sat down and I was like,

2:19blank nothing absolutely nothing came to me so i was like oh my god oh my god they were like thank you thank you and so i'm like right and i'm walking out and i'm freaking out and i'm like she's in the car she's going to lose it she's going to lose it she's going to lose it and i'm walking and i see girls walking in leotards and tights into a room and i was just like and I walked in with them and I had on like orange jean shorts and a white t-shirt that said like baby's kids on it and the teacher obviously ballet is all in French and she's going saute glissade padasha and I was just standing there she's like oh I'm sorry this is for trained dancers and I was like well if you show me I can do it she's like what I'm like if you show me I can do it so she said sit on the floor and then she you know it's all quite like genetically predetermined.

3:09So I sit on the floor and she checks my hips and checks my arches and everything. And she's like, well, physically it's all there, but you're really far behind. And I'm like, I can learn. So I did it for about three months there on probation. And then I was shipped off to ballet boarding school and life changed. That's amazing. So you went from Washington to New York. To New York to move into the School of American Ballet. And during those three months I would go home every night and I had bunk beds and I would put my leg on the bed and I would watch I had two VHS movies I had the Nutcracker and a chorus line and I would learn every part in all of it and just like I was completely obsessed with dancing so like um often people say oh you went to boarding school what did you sacrifice but it didn't feel like a sacrifice it felt like I was getting to do something um that I loved that was new to me and off radar.

4:04And I had a purpose. That's amazing. And how was it going from Washington to New York? That was really hard for me because I missed my family. And I also had culture shock, you know, where I grew up. I grew up in Washington, DC in a probably 99.9 % black neighborhood. So when I got to ballet school, I'll never forget it. There was a girl in front of me and she was like, my mom's really upset because we've got a five story house and the elevator's broken. Now she has to go up all the stairs on her own and I was just like staring I couldn't get my head around it um and then I remember we took ballet classes and maybe the first week I immediately noticed that other dancers had nicer clothes and they had lots of things that I just didn't have so I felt quite competitive like okay well now is your chance to shine because in ballet class you know you can't buy anything we're just dancing so if you can dance really well you can be equal and I saw like three girls after class talking to each other and they were like, the black guy's really good.

5:05But because my cultural reference came from Washington DC, where everybody was black, I was looking for him. Literally, where is he? Where is he? And then you're like, oh wow, my identity has changed a bit. That's how I'm seen here, but I have control because I can control how I dance. And you did. And I did. And you proved it. Yeah. Well, Were you the only black dancer? There were two. Really? Out of, I think, 500 children. So a girl and a boy? Two boys. Oh, two boys. Two boys. And my friend was in my class and he eventually transitioned into being a woman. Oh, did he? Yeah. And stayed a ballet dancer?

5:48He is now the head of costuming at Carolina Ballet. Oh, wow. Amazing. Yeah. Fantastic. that has ballet become more inclusive for black dancers um there are more black dancers dancing ballet than when I was in the company but I don't think it's a change where we've solved a problem I think that um well just being honest men have an easier ride I think that women have it uh a bit more difficult because men don't have to do uniformity in ballet. You're never doing the same pose as every other guy meant to look exactly the same. And I think for women, whether you're a white woman or not, that's even challenging because someone says, train really, really hard to be just like her, but I want you to be a star.

6:40But you've been trying to be like everyone else. So they don't really lend well to each other. I think when it comes to race, there's a way to go for, particularly for black women. I think that there just isn't enough representation. And I think that you have to find children really young. Actually, we were talking about this earlier, and you were saying, you know, go grassroots so that you get them at White Lodge at the Royal Ballet School, and then they can go through until they're older into the Royal Ballet. Absolutely. And I think in any big institution or anywhere where you're dancing at that level, if you think about the amount of women that are weeded out over time, whether they're white or black or anything, there's a big pool and then you just keep making it smaller and smaller and smaller.

7:25So you need to start with a lot of people. Yeah. And also you were saying it's, you've got to have everyone that's got the same hair color in one thing and the same height and everything. It's quite hard, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's quite hard. Anyway, let's get into your travel secrets because you've traveled all over the world. What is the number one destination you think everyone should go to once in their lifetime? This is going to sound really cliche, so forgive me, but I think it's Ibiza. And the reason I'll say that is because, you know, I'm not even sort of like super spiritual in any way, but I believe there's a particular energy there that's amazing.

8:01And when I first went, I thought, oh, maybe it's because everyone is here to have a good time and there aren't that many locals. So you don't feel like you're disturbing anyone, but I've done it differently. I've gone there and stayed in a luxury villa. Amazing. I've gone there and stayed at a place called Camping La Playa where you're camping. We were camping for three weeks in a tent in the North of the Island, super quiet. You sort of wake up and jump immediately into the sea. I had a Tumi suitcase, my husband and I, and we put loads of clothes in there. And we didn't realize that when you closed it, we didn't know the code to reopen it.

8:37So we had three weeks with two outfits, just couldn't get it open. And we just had to wash our things. And it just sort of made us scale back to nothingness. But you were in this, on this beautiful little campsite, just jumping in the water. They have, it's not camping in a way that you can't bathe. They have proper showers and a restaurant and everything. But it was really nice to experience it differently, but they were both great experiences, the villa and also camping there. And there's some amazing restaurants there. Amazing restaurants and energy, just a beautiful energy on the island. Actually, when I had Luke Evans on the podcast, it was very interesting because he said the first time he went, he hated it.

9:17Yeah. And then he went back again and he stayed with Kelly Hoppen, who loves Ibiza and has a house there. And he loved it so much that he bought a house. And he said he just loves going there because of the energy. He gets up in the morning, he goes on a bike and he goes down to this little bay and he skinny dips every morning. And I'm thinking, I wonder which bay that is. Everyone will want to know. Don't tell them on this podcast. But he loves it there. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. And there's some great hotels there now, aren't there? Really great hotels. I think there's the Sixth Sense. Yeah, Sixth Sense.

9:46And Nobu, I think, has opened the hotel there. Yeah. That's great. So number one destination. Okay. That's good to know. What is your most unexpected travel experience? um so i think four years ago i was talking uh with my partner about somewhere we could go for summer and he's really into wellness retreats and i was working a little bit with a place called the lanserhof here on dover street i was teaching classes there so i said to them oh maybe we should go to one of your retreats somewhere and it could be quite nice and they said oh why don't you do 10 days in Zilt in Germany? And I was like, oh, 10 days wellness retreat.

10:27Okay. So we go and we get there. I was a little apprehensive because I didn't want to lose weight. Yeah. So they were doing this sort of rebooting of your gut. I think for the last 15 years, I've been allergic to seafood. I couldn't have any seafood. I would start to get really ill and vomit just really bad. So I thought, oh, this could be good for my gut just to make sure I'm fine. I go there and we do this sort of drinking broth for about five days. So you did the fasting? Yeah, the fasting and just drinking lots of broth and lots of teas. Epsom salts. Epsom salts and lots of time in the bathroom.

11:05Lots of time. So Wednesday comes and you could see your menu. And it was the first day I was going to have like solid food. And I was quite excited because I was miserable. I would wake up every morning and apologize to my partner. I'm so sorry. I'm awful. I would just wake up angry. I've got a headache. Just angry. So I see the lunch menu at breakfast. I'm having my broth and it says broccoli pizza. And I'm like, oh, amazing. I can do that. A piece of pizza with broccoli on it. Perfect. I can do that. So I went salivating to lunch like, oh, yay, yay, yay. And they brought out broccoli in the shape of a pizza.

11:43And I started to cry. on the spot. I started to cry like, oh my God, this is nuts. And we had been going on cycling rides and you could smell French fries in town as you're cycling by. It was just crazy. And I was absolutely miserable. It cured my fish allergy. Did it? Really? The last day they said, you should just slowly start to reintroduce fish. I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Then I had one prawn. The next day I had a little piece of cod. Now I eat whatever I want. That's amazing. So that changed everything. That was amazing. Like I would go back for that. And actually the one in Silt is the new one, isn't it?

12:18Yeah, it was beautiful. Beautiful. One of the most luxurious places you've ever, I mean, it's amazing. I go every year to Bookingher Wilhelmi, which is a very similar one. It's an older one than the Lanzahof in January. And I do 10 days fasting. And the third day, I'm always crying. Always. I know that I'm going to, and I think I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to, but somehow everything just comes out. Even if you're reading a happy book, you'll cry. But you feel amazing afterwards. Your eyes are bright white. You've got so much energy. It's incredible, isn't it? You think, how can that be when I'm not eating?

12:51I love the fact that you cried when you thought it was a broccoli pizza. I actually like the one in Germany that I go to because it's not near anything. So you have no temptation. You're taken on walks in the forests. They have a sister one in Marbeille, but the walks are on the beach. And I think if I smelt French fries or coffee, that I would be tempted. Yeah, yeah. That's what was happening. It was really hard. Oh, dear. So your husband loves wellness retreats, does he? So he loves wellness retreats. And I was just like, oh, yeah, let's do it. But he didn't cry. He was happy. He loved it. Yeah.

13:24Yeah. Well, I was going to say, I know lots more that I could send you on, but maybe not. There are lots of other places in the world. What is the most overrated or underrated place you've ever been or experience you've ever had? Interesting. So I think Lanzarote, which is completely underrated. So everyone said to me, oh, don't go to Lanzarote. You're going to hate it. It's all inclusive. It'll be really trashy. It'll be really trashy. But we thought, oh, well, it's really close. We just need some sun. Let's just go. Winter sun. Great. Yeah, I'd never been. So we just go. We rock up there and we have a nice place to stay.

13:58But then the first day it's like, oh, let's go to the beach. And we just look for the most popular beach near us. And we get to the beach. It's pretty crowded. And I was a bit like, I don't know. This is it, but it's fine. I'll just go and grab a coffee. I'll be right back, Harry. So I walk to get a coffee. And as I'm walking back, I hear him shouting, haven't you ever heard of headphones? And I'm like, what's happening? And then there's some guys there going, we're scousers. And then I could see that it's sort of all kicking off. But it's like nine o 'clock in the morning. And they're drinking beers.

14:30It's all getting a bit rowdy. And I was just kind of like, oh, maybe we should go. Maybe we should go. And he's like, okay, let's go. And so we get in the car and we look for like a quiet, wild beach instead. And so we find this other beach that was so beautiful, like sort of just behind the volcanoes. And I realized that Lanzarote has two sides. There's a sort of wild, natural, beautiful, sometimes nudist side. Very cool. And then there's the all-inclusive popular beach. And I think that that's where people think you're going to Lanzarote. But that's not true. We stayed in a beautiful hotel called Buena Vista that was made of a volcano.

15:07It was amazing. And all of the wild natural beaches were absolutely beautiful. We go every day. And now, love it there. So don't go to the side where they have the beer drinking people at nine in the morning without headphones. Exactly. And don't stay near the water. Staying inland was so much nicer. Was it? And driving out to the water, yeah. But those islands are brilliant in the winter when it's gray and miserable here. And you just want a quick flight. Exactly. Four hours away and you've got lovely sunshine. Yeah. Very interesting. Okay. Go to the wild beaches. That's a very good tip. Yeah.

15:44Did you ever go anywhere when you were dancing that you thought was overrated or underrated? Did you dance somewhere that you thought, oh, I didn't expect to love this place? Oh, that's interesting. Japan. I went to Japan. We traveled Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto quite often because, as you probably know, ballet is popular in Japan, sort of like football is popular here. So you'd get like most amazing treatment, the most amazing experience. And also, it's probably the most foreign place I'd ever been in my life. I think the first time I went there was 20 years ago and they were already on FaceTime on the subway.

16:22Oh, really? So I felt like, wow, this is, this is, they're miles ahead as far as technology goes. And a friend of mine had a beautiful Louis Vuitton bag that she forgot on the subway. And it went in a circle. The bag went all the way around and came back. Still there. Not touched. Yeah. Lovely. That was amazing. Yeah. I think that's still the same, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is. The really strange thing about Japan, I think it's probably different from when I went, But the road signs are all incomprehensible. And the metro, which is fantastic, you just think, oh, my God, I don't know what that says.

16:58Where am I going? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's nowhere more foreign than I've ever been to. No. Yeah. But very beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And amazing food. Yeah. And also, too, I don't know if it's a me thing, but, and it might be seen as, like, not adventurous, but I don't like to go places where I have to sort of look over my shoulder. No. I don't enjoy that. So watching my wallet and watching my pocket while I'm on a holiday is just not for me. So Japan was great. I could completely relax and just enjoy. Let's go on to food and drink. Yes. Not allergies, but food and drink. So food and drink is so part of travel.

17:32What do you like eating? Where do you eat? What do you like drinking? Let's just talk about food and drink in the context of travel. Sure. So I love wine. I love good wine. So I love going wine tasting. I've gone wine tasting in Greece and Italy and had some of the best times ever. Really? I did. And as I said, I recently got married. And we were working on the catering for the wedding. And we went to loads of tastings of food. And it was awful. And all the sort of wedding food was just really sort of dry chicken with a piece of vegetable and some kind of potato. And I just was like, oh, this is awful.

18:11But we're having quite a small wedding. We had 55 people. so I thought oh maybe we can have what we want and he's like what do you mean I'm like maybe we can have what we want let's just check what Otolinghi does it was affordable 10 times better than anything else we had tasted and everyone at the wedding was just like oh you have Otolinghi we're gonna eat well they loved it um I love it there I think the food is amazing you know the most beautiful chef ever like it's just really great um so whenever I can find one there's a new one at Vista Village I went to the other day. Oh, is there? Yeah.

18:43Oh, I love Vista Village too. Fantastic. And I love Otolinghi. That's a great tip. Very, very good tip. Yeah. And where did you have your wedding? We had a wedding on our farm. Did you? Yeah. We had everyone come out to the farm and we just had it there. And you had it in a marquee? We had it in a marquee, but we had beautiful weather. I don't know. The gods came down on us that day. We had really beautiful weather. We had people set up tents and other people stayed at the Crown Hotel, the one from Four Weddings and the Funeral. That's not far from us. The pub? Yeah. Where Hugh Grant is staying.

19:16Oh, is that near you? That's right near us. Oh, I love that. That's the quintessential English pub, isn't it? Yeah. Fantastic. Oh, how wonderful. And did you have your first night at Claridge's? Because I know Claridge's is a huge thing. You love Claridge's. Yes, I love Claridge's. We didn't, but I went to Claridge's recently to celebrate them putting my picture in their Hall of Fame, which is amazing. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah, that's really wonderful. What about that picture? David Downton, the fashion illustrator, drew the picture. It's so exciting. He's the guy that does all of the amazing illustrations.

19:46Amazing. So where is the picture? It's hanging downstairs in their Talking Heads gallery, just to the left of reception, right near King Charles. Is it? Yes. Aha, I shall go and find you both. Yes. And what did you do last year with Claridge's? You did something in their art space, didn't you? So I did ballet classes for the general public and their guests. We did six weeks of ballet classes sort of themed alongside whatever exhibition was there. So it would be like David Hockney and Eric Underwood. And we did sort of, yeah. So you did ballet around? We did ballet around. The exhibition was all over the wall and they cleared the space.

20:26And then we did ballet in the space. So did you have to be a good ballet dancer to do that? No. We didn't look for any good ballet dancers. They were just, it was just for normal people. So the idea of my teaching classes in the schools or anywhere is to sort of find movement and joy. We don't worry about perfection at all. Technique will come later. But it's to introduce ballet to people that it's off radar for. And then if they enjoy it, they can go back and find the technique. Because that's how I started. I knew nothing about ballet. But I knew how to dance. And I feel like if, particularly with children, if you can give them the space to free themselves up and dance well and just find the love of movement, it's much easier to attract them than doing this thing that is so, you're trying to achieve this sort of unachievable perfection and it becomes more of a chore.

21:18That's just not how you find the love. And you do a lot with schools, don't you? I do. I do a lot. So I work with a, there's a school called London Fields Primary School that I kind of pinched myself, but they called me to tell me that they had named their curriculum after me. Oh, that's amazing. They chose six people to name their curriculum after. And then she said, will you send a video to the children? I was like, no, I'll see you soon. And so I went in and I developed a relationship. And I go back and I work with them quite a bit. And I work with a few other charities in Hackney. And soon I will be developing a dance curriculum in the PE department of St.

21:54Paul's. That's fantastic. St. Paul's Boys School. Yeah, St. Paul's Boys School. That's wonderful. Do they do any dance there at the moment? They don't. And they don't have any independent schools that are boys schools that have a dance curriculum. So this will be the first. That is fantastic. I can't wait to know more about that. That's really wonderful. Well done. Well done. What is your top travel tip or your top travel secret? Give yourself enough time to not rush through anything. I think a lot of going on holiday is around finding a way to relax. And we all are in this sort of rat race where we're just accustomed to go, go, go, go, go.

22:31So don't have a schedule. Just figure it out. If you feel like just lying down on the couch one day and taking it easy, I think that's totally okay. I think it's about really practicing how to relax. That's probably one of the most important things. And go to new places, new places that you haven't seen. So I went to South Africa, and that was my second time ever going to the continent of Africa. I had gone to Morocco, but never anywhere else. I went there with Beyond Borg to shoot a tennis campaign. Oh, did you? Yeah. How wonderful. So I met lots of lovely Swedish people. Had a great time for three days.

23:11I haven't seen much else there, but I had a great time. Do you play tennis? I do. I'm learning. It's early days. So I have a tennis court at the farm, and I've now had three lessons. um yeah it's really challenging because it's so much more technical than i expected and i thought dance would help me but it turns out a lunge doesn't work for tennis well a lunge does but you've got to have hand eye coordination as well yeah and you have to turn profile and then back to the front it just felt like a lot was going on but yeah that's hilarious where have you been on your campaigns as a model that you loved or that hated?

23:51Just let's talk about that. Well, I told you how I grew up in ballet boarding school in New York. So I grew up in the Rose Building in Lincoln Center. And years later, I got a job with H &M. I did a big campaign for them. And I was flown back to New York to shoot the campaign, which was incredible. But this time, I was, we shot on the beach somewhere near Coney Island. And it was probably one of my favorite jobs because the images were amazing. And the treatment was incredible. It was really different from ballet school. So was that when you were at ballet school or once you'd left? No, once I'd left, I was in the Royal Ballet then.

24:30So you nipped over for a little photo shoot to New York. Yeah. Fantastic. And when you went to Morocco, did you do a shoot there? I did do a shoot there. I did an art magazine shoot there, which was really nice. And that came off the back of. So I did the cover of Italian Vogue with Kate Moss. So I went to Paris for Fashion Week and I met Kate at this magazine party called Louis. And we started chatting about the most random thing because I'm a big Dance Moms fan. I don't know if you've heard of this show. There's a reality show called Dance Moms. and there's this sort of very intense dance teacher.