THE Big Ballet has been forced for the first time in its 16-year history to lower the minimum weight requirement for the all-female troupe from 17 stone.

Returning to Britain after a three-year hiatus, the “alternative” Russian ballet company from Perm in the Ural Mountains has cut its minimum weight to 15 stone, in response to a “surprising drop in the average weight of auditioning hopefuls”.

The company will be in York on Tuesday, playing the Grand Opera House as part of a 39-date tour, having earlier toured Britain in 2007 and 2008, when the average weight of the 16 female dancers stood at just under 20 stone.

The minimum weight of 17 stone was so strict that principal dancer Tatyana Gladkih was even temporarily excluded from participating in pre-tour training sessions after dropping beneath the minimum requirement in 2008.

Alexej Ignatow, The Big Ballet’s UK tour producer, says: “While many of the original dancers are retained for the forthcoming tour, open auditions regularly take place in Russia.

“These events were initially so heavily oversubscribed with potential dancers weighing the original required minimum of 15 stone in 1994 that the level was raised to 17 stone.

“However, the number of hopefuls weighing 17 stone has dropped significantly in the past two years, coinciding with sustained global campaigns for healthier eating, perhaps most notably spearheaded by celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver.”

Dion Clements, publicist for The Big Ballet UK tour, says: “It should be remembered that the returning dancers continue to retain their weight despite vigorous fitness training and rehearsal sessions, as well as highly demanding tour schedules, suggesting that certain dancers’ genetics influence their size. The longer-standing members of the troupe have always maintained they eat as healthily as the average-sized person.”

Alexej adds: “The new weight requirement will not really affect the show, only bringing it back in alignment with creator Panfilov’s original vision.”

Never one to shy away from controversy, Evgenii Panfilov had decided to prove two things to the world in 1994: firstly, that women of larger build are able to move with similar grace, dignity and flare as traditional dancers, and secondly, that he would be able to create a professional ballet troupe from dancers with no previous experience.

In doing so, Panfilov “challenged accepted social standards in a world where the pursuit of slenderness and beauty seems obsessive”.

Panfilov was murdered in 2002, but The Big Ballet lives on, the dancers training at the Perm Ballet Academy, an academy influenced by the works of Peter Tchaikovsky, himself from the Ural region, and by Serge Diaghilev, the genius of the Ballets Russes.

The 2011 Size Does Matter Tour show is a “comedy performance full of fun and astonishing choreography, proving that you should not take life, or yourself, too seriously”.

Performed on a black-box stage with hand-made costumes, it comprises a first half of parodies of classical ballets, followed by a faster-paced second half where the larger-than-life dancers dance to the rather more contemporary music of Robbie Williams, Tom Jones (Sex Bomb) and the Pet Shop Boys (Go West, in a nod to Russia). Watch out, too, for one number in “silky, buttock-less outfits”.

• For tickets for Tuesday’s 7.30pm show, phone 0844 847 2322 or book online at grandoperahouseyork.org.uk

The tour, mounted by Amande Concerts, also visits Hull New Theatre on Monday at 7.30pm; box office, 01482 226655.