One dancer’s life can map an entire city’s shifting relationship with art, politics and the body. We sit down with Liz King, a Royal Ballet School graduate who chooses a different path, moving from classical ballet into contemporary dance and physical theatre, then helping to reshape what dance could be in Vienna. Liz takes us from the chalk hills near Salisbury and an early love of theatre to the discipline of Royal Ballet School training under the watchful eye of Madame Ninette de Valois. We talk honestly about what technique gives you, what it can take away, and the moment Liz realises choreography is where her instincts come alive. Her stories from Stuttgart Ballet, including the awakening of musicality and spatial awareness through Balanchine, open into a broader view of how dancers grow beyond the “correct” shape of a career. Soon Vienna becomes a central character: a city of thinkers, burdened history and surprising opportunity. Liz reflects on co-founding Tanztheater Wien, creating work that responds to the social and political climate, and making her first key piece Wien Wien Du Bist Allein with its café-world of memory and subtext. We also get the wild chapter of choreographing Falco’s 1986 tour, the front-page scandal, and what it means to stage feminist sexuality and nudity in a Catholic-leaning culture. From her Heidelberg years and the post-War piece West West to the Volksoper era, at the helm of the ballet group, and Swan Lake Remixed, the thread is clear: make it real, make it visible, and make it matter. If you are interested in Vienna contemporary dance, Tanztheater, choreography, dance history in Austria, or mentoring the next generation through programmes like Dance Identity in Burgenland, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a fellow dance lover, and leave a review: which part of Liz King’s journey stays with you most?