Ballet Central Diary

Verity's June Diary

Dear Diary,

The tour has gone so fast, I can’t believe that tomorrow, Crawley, is our last venue before our week at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London. I have enjoyed it so much I don’t want it to end, but I suppose it is time to move on to bigger and better things.

Let’s see, the last time I wrote we were about to head off to Grantham, Wakefield and Hexham. This was a tough one as we had three performances in a row with travelling in between, which meant very early mornings and even later nights. I remember Wakefield very well: let’s just say it should have been called ‘Rakefield’. I think our floor rolled itself out at this venue - the rake was very steep! When we arrived at Hexham the next day we all got excited because there was a great big ‘sold out’ sign stuck across our poster. After the show that night a group of girls came around to the stage door and were asking for our autographs - they were really sweet and made us all feel like stars.

The next tour took us to Glasgow to perform in Stirling and Galashiels. Stirling was amazing. The theatre was at a university surrounded by really nice mountainous scenery and there was a lake with ducks and swans. Actually the swans started to come for us at one point, it was really quite scary. I really liked this venue because the dressing rooms were great. They were big and roomy, and there was a little green room with a kitchen, television and comfy sofas! Galashiels on the other hand was not so great. The dressing rooms were fine, but we were performing in a hall rather than on a stage, so we were dancing on the floor and there were no wings.

Not long after our return we headed off for the longest leg of the tour – two performances at Taunton, two at Bridport and one at Frome, this meant five performances in a row! It was tough but I really enjoyed it. Mmm, Taunton? It’s a bit of a blur we’ve done so much since - all I remember is throwing a lot of bread to some very hungry ducks. Bridport I definitely could not forget. At this venue we stayed in twos and threes with families. I was with Carolyn and Naomi and we stayed with a lovely lady and her dog, two cats and two sheep! Her house was amazing and she had a really nice, large yard. It was great to be cooked nice food and just to be in a house rather than a travel lodge. Another reason I couldn’t forget Bridport is because the stage was rather miniature. It was no problem for us though because we are really used to having to adjust our show to fit any size or shaped stage. The two shows went really well and the audience was amazing, they were very supportive.

Aw, we had come to our final stay over tour and it was again back to Glasgow for Cumbernauld and the Royal Concert Hall. Cumbernauld was a bit strange - when we pulled up outside a shed in the middle of the bush we weren’t quite sure what to think. We were even more shocked when we walked in and saw before us a stage that looked like a catwalk! It was all good though - I think our show was sold out that night and it was a very receptive audience. The Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow was amazing! I really loved the two days that we spent here. We spent the first day rehearsing and then we had workshops with children ranging from the ages of 5 to 16. I was with the group of 7 to 10 year olds. We had to do three workshops with them – design, dance and music. These children were to perform in our show the next night and all in all there were nearly 100 of them! It was hard work but it was so much fun and the children really adored us. One little girl said she just had to get my number and email address so I could stay at her house and watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – how sweet.

Since then, we have done two day-trip venues, firstly to Eastleigh and then to Chipping Norton. On the way to Chipping Norton we got stuck in what we thought was a bit of traffic. We then heard that there was an accident up ahead and they had shut the motorway. We realized we were going to be stuck there for quite a while and it was a very hot day so we all piled off the bus and ended up sun-baking on the motorway - not something you do everyday. Luckily it wasn’t too much longer before we got moving again and it didn’t affect the schedule of our day too much.

Well, we have one more venue left - Crawley. In between this we are all very busy preparing for graduation which is only a couple of weeks away, I am going to perform a solo from the third act of Raymonda and I have a lot of rehearsing to do, so on that note I will go.

Verity xx

Posted by at June 30, 2005 11:05 AM