Ballet Central Diary

Brian's March Diary - Auditions and First Tour

Hi again. It's been an incredibly busy month. I have just got back from my first long tour, to four venues in the north of England. I have also auditioned for Northern Ballet Theatre.

The audition went very well and I was pleased with my performance in it. First we did a warm-up and them class with David Nixon - he was very giving in the audition and I was pleased that he took it more like a class, giving us corrections and helping us to better ourselves. I was quite excited when I got through the first round, and into the repertoire class. We were taught the Black Swan Mens Duet from the company's new production of 'Swan Lake'. It is a technically difficult piece but a great joy to dance. Then we were taught a short pas de deux section from 'I've Got Rhythm', and a really fun Swing dance from their 'Midsummer Night's Dream'.

A week later I found myself packing clothes, food (lots of food!) and some dance gear, and getting on the coach for the 7 hour Drive to Kendal in the Lake District. The journey was pretty uneventful with most of the coach sleeping, reading or playing cards. We arrived in Kendal in the early evening and found we were staying in a hostel just next door to the theatre. This was very nice as it meant we could get up much later than we could usually. Kendal is a beautiful town and we were able to look around it on the Sunday as we had the day off. While some of the company made their way to Lake Windemere, I went walking to Kendal Castle and out on to the country lanes around the town.
The performance itself was very good although one of the girls (Christie Duncan, my fellow diarist) fell ill and we had to fill her place, which meant some last minute changes and a bit of running around during the performance. To be continued.....

Well Concluding from the above. It was on to Huddersfield, and another show. Huddersfield was pretty standard we all knew what we were doing and apart from some minor cast changes (this time planned), it was a repeat of Kendal. It was a flying visit, only being there for one day, the next morning it was off to Chesterfield, and a little shock, our first raked stage!!
This did make for some fun on and off the stage as we all ajusted to the feeling of not having our feet flat on the ground. The performance here was not bad I was dancing David Bintley's "Flowers of the Forest" which to begin with I was very nervous about performing. There is one section in the Pas de Deux where we had to perform two sets of double Sissonnes, a step wich I grew to hate, for a few weeks as it took so much practice and in the end I was dreaming about them!

The next day it was on to Manchester, and to a huge stage (by our usually small standards). We were all really happy to be able to use so much space. Usually we have to reduce most steps. I was really pleased to be performing Dracula again as I had not perviously on this tour. I love performing this part as I can really sink my teeth (pardon the pun) into the acting and character aspects of it.
I had some friend watching, and going out front to see them after the performance to find out what they enjoyed makes the hard work all the more worth while. However harder days were yet to come....

Posted by at April 5, 2004 02:00 PM