Ballet Central Diary

Sarah's April Diary

Hi Everyone!!
As you all may know, our Ballet Central tour opened two weeks ago, which was a great success. We were all excited about the opening night and the prospect of all our hard work over the past 2 months finally paying off. I danced the tennis girl solo from Gillian Lynne's 'A Simple Man', which I thoroughly enjoyed and it was amazing to finally dance it on stage.
After practising something for so long in a studio, it feels fantastic but a bit ‘alien’ when done on stage because the atmosphere, and the environment is so different.
Nevertheless, we had a great time! My mum came to watch the show and she said we all looked so professional.
Not only did I enjoy the performing side of the tour, but it was a great learning experience to do all the work that puts the show on the stage. This includes putting the floor down on the stage, rigging the lights, sorting the costumes in wardrobe and organizing “front of house”.

On 25th March, we performed at the Civic Theatre in Chelmsford. This was another day venue which went really well. I was ecstatic to find out that I was to dance the pas de deux role in 'Scottish Dances from Flowers of the Forest as well as my Tennis Girl role in 'A Simple Man'. 'Scottish Dances' is a fantastic and dynamic work choreographed by David Bintley which I enjoy dancing so much. The pas de deux is such a wonderful role to dance - you can really express yourself through the music and choreograpy.

I attended the audition for Northern Ballet Theatre on 21st March. This was my first audition, and so I was quite anxious to see what it was going to be like, but I ended up having a great time! We had ballet class with the Director, David Nixon, and at the end he called out the numbers he wanted to keep behind for another class. I was overwhelmed when my number was called out!! (along with three other girls and three boys from Central). In the final, there were about 15 boys and 15 girls. We learnt repertoire from David Nixon’s 'Swan Lake' - the girls learnt “Big Swans” and then we teamed up with a boy to dance a pas de deux from “I’ve got Rhythm”. I haven’t heard from NBT yet, but hopefully it won’t be too long now!.....

In the meantime, I’ve been at school rehearsing new roles for the tour and planning other auditions for companies.

Until next time, goodbye and once again I am so pleased to be sharing this most exciting part of my life with you!

Sarah

Posted by at April 2, 2004 04:50 PM