Ballet Central Diary

Our first two performances

I know it has been a while so I thought I would start by apologising for not having written sooner, however the girls have been equally as bad so I do take a little comfort from that. A lot has been going on, David Nixon has been in and selected his cast for the new piece he is creating and Brenda, Rym and I have all been chosen which is a wonderful opportunity for us. Along with our tireless rehearsal schedule the Company also did a residency at University College School in Hampstead. It lasted two days and was a really good experience. It is an all boys school and throughout the day they would turn up, watch and participate in ballet and pas de deux classes. We also did a jazz workshop which I would like to think went down well with the 40 twelve-year-old lads that took part.....manic to say the least.

The residency finished with a performance and that is where it all started to go wrong. Rym and I had been ask to perform Christopher Gable's 'Fireside Pas de Deux' which we were very very excited about. Rehearsals had been going really well but for some reason it all just went horribly wrong on the day. Rym tripped over my foot about half way through and it went downhill from there, my finger got caught in her costume on one of the lifts and the presage at the end was almost non existent. 'you know when something is going so wrong you do not believe it is really happening', Rym's comment as we walked off stage summed up the performance perfectly. Needless to say we felt the full throttle of our embarrassing performance from the Boss, our only consolation being that we had a chance to put it right four days later.

'Behind the Scenes' is an event that Central put on for our many sponsors. The school is decorated to the maximum and many important and powerful people come to watch a performance that we put together. It is a special occasion and Rym and I knew how important it was that we got it right, Bruce Sansom's decleration to the audience that the pas de deux represented everything the school stood for in terms of artistry and technique did little to settle the nerves but perhaps gave us the lift we needed. It went very well and according to reliable sources caused a few tears in the audience, the exact response we were after. All in all the last few weeks have gone well, rehearsals are progressing nicely and rather worryingly time is going rather quickly. We have been told the Matthew Bourne reportoire, something that I am particularly excited about and also some exciting news about Mark Baldwin, we will let you know soon. Thank you for reading, speak soon, Tom x

Posted by Tom Conlan at November 28, 2007 02:26 PM