Ballet Central Diary

Christie's January diary

Hi everybody, hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. This year we had three weeks holiday, although not all of it was spent resting as being a dancer means you still have to keep in shape even in time off.

The new term for me began not at school but in Leeds in Northern Ballet Theatre’s rehearsal studios. I was lucky enough to be chosen along with a few other students to take part in David Nixon’s production of Swan Lake. This is a very exciting experience for us, working with a professional company and giving us an insight in to what to expect when we leave school and gain employment in our first job. Working on Swan Lake specifically teaches us the importance of working as a corps de ballet and develops skills of learning steps and patterns quickly.

It was strange suddenly finding myself the youngest and the least experienced once again, as I have been used to being the top of the school for the last few months. Because of this I felt I had to prove myself capable of working in a company environment and found myself working even harder to perfect the steps and style of the piece. This was not the only challenge that we faced, as the way in which Northern Ballet Theatre works differs slightly to our training at Central. These were not major changes or differences in technique, rather we were constantly reminded that there are different ways of presenting or executing steps. This felt strange to begin with; but spending two weeks in rehearsal and taking company class with NBT, I soon adapted to what was being asked of me.

I am returning to Leeds within the next couple of weeks to continue rehearsals before the premiere at Leeds Grand Theatre on 14th February. I am looking forward to my first performance not only as a swan but also as a member of Ballet Central! I’ll keep you all informed as to how rehearsals progress into performances and let you any other news from Ballet Central. Bye for now. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Posted by at January 28, 2004 09:09 AM