Ballet Central Diary

Katherine's First Entry

The tour has started!! I cannot believe it, before I came to Central I saw the Ballet Central 2003 performance, I was in so much awe of the performers and now 3 years on one of those performers is me. I have thoroughly enjoyed my training at Central and honestly believe that I could not have had a better preparation for life or a professional career in dance. Prior to training at Central, I firstly attended a local dancing school from the age of 5. I have always loved to dance and perform and this was encouraged by my teachers from a young age. Then after doing the 1998 season with the National Youth Ballet my love for dancing and primarily ballet was confirmed and it was from this point on that I knew that all I wanted to do was dance. I then moved dancing schools to increase my classical training, as it was this I wanted to focus on more. I learnt a lot of valuable information from different teachers and will be ever greatful for the effort that they put in to help me achieve a place at a full-time vocational school. One of the best days of my life so far was when I gained my place at Central, although I knew a lot of hard work was ahead I was also certain that I would enjoy it, and I certainly have!

We have been working on the repertoire for the tour since September and at first the heavy rehearsal schedule was a shock to the system! After a while you start to get a little bit more used to it, although at the end of some days the only thing you want to do is sleep! We've already learnt a lot about life in a company (which is essentially what this tour is all about) from working with choreographers including the prestigious Michael Corder! I was very scared at first when he came to rehearse us but he is lovely and I've really enjoyed working with him and on his piece 'St Paul's Suite'. We've also learnt about different aspects of the technical side of things including lighting, wardrobe and even how to lay the floor! I'm on the wardrobe team which is fun, plus we can start the get out during the show so our work load is nicely spread out.

The get-in at Ilford was exciting as everybody was really looking forward to opening night so there was lots of jokes and laughter. Then the technical rehearsal was ok, but they're really tiring and the run throughs of each piece didn't go too well. I was really scared for the dress rehearsal as the rest of the school was coming to watch... a much more critical audience than my family! However, thanks to some much needed adrenaline the rehearsal went really well and I enjoyed it a lot!! The next day we all felt tired and consequently the dress rehearsal was awful, I was dreading the performance and just hoping that it would go ok. Then at the half hour call Bill, our artistic director, asked us to meet in the green room, he gave us a pep talk and a rose each (!!) which brought back all of my excitement and made me ready to perform. The performance was great, I enjoyed it so much and luckily everything was fine, except one tumble that managed to go unnoticed by some members of staff and audience!! The audience were also really responsive which helped our confidence lots. We did the get out really quickly and were home by 11.30, although physically exhausted we were too excited to sleep and stayed up talking about the performance! I'm looking forward to the next leg of the tour so much. Kendal and Liverpool are my home venues so lots of family and friends are coming to watch and they are always so encouraging and appreciative!

Posted by Katherine Hollinson at March 16, 2006 09:04 PM