Ballet Central Diary

Christie's January diary

Hi everybody, hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year. This year we had three weeks holiday, although not all of it was spent resting as being a dancer means you still have to keep in shape even in time off.

The new term for me began not at school but in Leeds in Northern Ballet Theatre’s rehearsal studios. I was lucky enough to be chosen along with a few other students to take part in David Nixon’s production of Swan Lake. This is a very exciting experience for us, working with a professional company and giving us an insight in to what to expect when we leave school and gain employment in our first job. Working on Swan Lake specifically teaches us the importance of working as a corps de ballet and develops skills of learning steps and patterns quickly.

It was strange suddenly finding myself the youngest and the least experienced once again, as I have been used to being the top of the school for the last few months. Because of this I felt I had to prove myself capable of working in a company environment and found myself working even harder to perfect the steps and style of the piece. This was not the only challenge that we faced, as the way in which Northern Ballet Theatre works differs slightly to our training at Central. These were not major changes or differences in technique, rather we were constantly reminded that there are different ways of presenting or executing steps. This felt strange to begin with; but spending two weeks in rehearsal and taking company class with NBT, I soon adapted to what was being asked of me.

I am returning to Leeds within the next couple of weeks to continue rehearsals before the premiere at Leeds Grand Theatre on 14th February. I am looking forward to my first performance not only as a swan but also as a member of Ballet Central! I’ll keep you all informed as to how rehearsals progress into performances and let you any other news from Ballet Central. Bye for now. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sarah Kundi’s January Diary

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas - I certainly did and enjoyed having a good rest.

Just before we broke up for the holidays, we all had our audition shots taken by the well-known dance photographer, Bill Cooper. This included portrait shots which was great fun, partly because I got to get my hair done! It was my first ever experience of a proper photo shoot with backdrops and lights - it was absolutely fantastic and I enjoyed every minute of it. We had to choose and rehearse ballet, neo- classical and contemporary dance positions beforehand so that when we got in there for the shots, we knew what we were doing. The thing that made me feel really at ease was that Bill Cooper was very helpful and communicative with us, giving us tips and advice on how to make our chosen positions look even better. What a fantastic photographer he is - probably helped by the fact that he had a successful dancing career himself.

During the holiday, I was chosen as one of eight dancers from CSB for a photo shoot with Sunday Times magazine. This was rather exciting, partly because we modelled Alexander McQueen clothing. It was a one day shoot and when we arrived in the morning, we all had our hair and make- up done - I was shocked when we had to wear red wigs!! We all looked so different (especially me - red hair does not suit me at all!!). Look out for the article.

We have now started rehearsing another work for our Ballet Central tour, one which many of you will know – we are going to perform extracts from ‘A Simple Man’, which was created by Gillian Lynne. Rehearsals have just started for it and I have the part of the tennis girl. The costume is lovely - I have to wear a white silky dress with a hat which has a long black plait attached to it. I also need a wooden tennis racket which my Dad luckily found for £1.50 in a charity shop - what a great Dad!! When we were shooting the production pictures for the piece, again with Bill Cooper, everyone was amazed that I was able to acquire a wooden racket as they are all but obsolete!

That’s all for now but I’ll catch up next month on how rehearsals and auditions are going.

Best Wishes

Sarah

Ashley Dixon’s January Diary

Hey everybody, hope you all had a great Christmas and are all enjoying being back at work (hehe). After my last entry in December a lot has been happening. At the end of last term we all had photos taken for our CV’s (it’s auditions time…), which involved coming up with ballet and contemporary dance positions that we liked. This turned out to be a lot harder than I first thought as it was quite difficult to catch the position you wanted exactly right for the photographer to capture. The shoot was spread over a few days, after which we went on to do the production shots for ‘Ballet Central’. These also presented a challenge, as there is a lot of waiting time while things are being set up and you have to try to keep yourself warm and then just be able to do whatever you are asked with only a moment’s notice. It was an exciting experience however, as it brought us a step closer to starting the tour.

Also in development at the moment are the new student choreographies for ‘Ballet Central’. I’d always wanted to choreograph a piece and I have teamed up with one of the girls in the company to create something together. A lot of company members have shown interest in this project and we have eight student pieces underway. This has made our first week back very interesting and very tiring as we have all been dancing in different pieces ready to show them at the beginning of next week (12th January). At least one of the pieces could be chosen to be included in the repertoire for the 2004 tour, which is such a great opportunity. I will let you know how my piece goes.

I’ve also started looking at some auditions but none are definite yet. I’ll keep you up-to-date on what’s happening and speak to all of you soon. Bye bye!!!

Brian Allen’s January Diary

Happy New Year all! Well, one week of the new term is gone and I already feel like I need a holiday again. Talking of holidays I’ve just come back from three weeks in the sun and on the beach in South Africa. It was a real pain getting there and back, I was delayed for fourteen hours in Athens airport and so ended up playing cards for about ten of those. Once there, however, it was really great - it is the first time that I have been home since I started at Central School. It was also the first time ever that all ten of my first cousins on my mom’s side of the family have been together.

We were staying in my uncle’s beach house in Kenton-on-sea, which is about an hour and a half from Port Elizabeth. It is a small town and has the most gorgeous and diverse beaches, from wide dunes to rock pools and coves, and most important SUN!!! Christmas was a big family affair with 32 of us. It was great to see all my cousins who were all very young when I last saw them and are all grown up now.

There was a sad part to the holiday though, we took my mum’s ashes and laid them in the memorial wall in Kenton. It was a sad day but also I feel that there is now somewhere where I can go and be with her, even if it is in South Africa.

Well that is about all that I need to say, we are now working on our student choreography, the best of which will be included in the rep for the 2004 tour . I am creating a piece to Vivaldi’s Gloria. It is a really structured piece and has been a challenge. I do hope it will come together as I work more on it, I’ll keep you posted as to the progress. Until next time, Brian signing off.