Ballet Central Diary

Sarah's May Diary

A big hello to everyone!
I have some fantastic news to share with you all -

I have a job!!

I was offered the contract just over a month ago to join Northern Ballet Theatre in July. I still can’t believe it – it’s just starting to hit me that I am going to be moving up to Leeds, living and working there in only two months time. I feel so happy and relieved to have a job – I screamed down the phone when I received the news – I was ecstatic! It’s really good because Christie (fellow student and ballet.co.uk diarist) has also received a contract from NBT, so we’ll be there to help each other out, which makes it a bit less scary.
I officially signed the contract a few weeks ago and I start on the 19th July. That is only 9 days after our Graduation. I am looking forward to starting work with Northern Ballet Theatre. It shall be very exciting and I can’t wait.

We are now a good 6/7 weeks into the tour – almost half way I think and so far it has been running smoothly…
I recently had my first taste of touring away when we performed in Wrexham in April. I was cast in a Gillian Lynne’s A Simple Man (this time doing the Street Scene and ‘Coming from the Mill’) Andre Prokovsky’s ‘Vespri’ (pure classical ballet piece) and David Bintley’s ‘Flowers of the Forest’ (I danced the pas de deux role). The performance went well and as usual we all helped with get-out afterwards.

The following day I travelled to Warrington for a ScottishPower workshop with five fellow students. This was quite tiring especially travelling with all our luggage. We must have been on at least seven different trains that day to get there and back afterwards!... Aside from being tired from all the travelling and performing, we had lots of fun with the kids involved in the workshop. First we did a small demonstration for them of excerpts from the Ballet Central repertoire and then we worked with them helping to create pieces based on what we had demonstrated to show their parents…. It was great to see the enthusiasm of the kids – they really threw themselves into it.

Straight after this, we performed in Hertford. This was great because my Mum and dad and two sisters came to watch. One of my sisters hadn’t watched me dance in a few years and so it was really special to be dancing for her... I was really pleased to be dancing in ‘Flowers of the Forest’ and the Tennis Girl role from Simple Man again.

A few weeks ago, we left for our three venue tour which was in Hexham, Wakefield and Colwyn Bay. This I have to say was extremely tiring because they were three days on the trot with not a day in between to rest or catch up on the sleep.. So it was quite a struggle to get through them, but I am proud to say that I managed it! I absolutely loved Hexham. The town was pretty and the theatre was lovely too – I have less fond memories of Wakefield however, partly because a booming nightclub kept me awake late into the night and also because the theatre presented some difficulties. The stage we performed on had a horrible rake making turning and jumping more difficult and a little uncomfortable.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience that the tour brought, and I hope I have the opportunity to go on the Scotland tour which is next on the list.

I am signing off for now but I will keep you up to date on everything that goes on.

Until next month,

Love from

Sarah

Christie's May Entry

Hello again!

I can’t believe just how quickly the months are flying by! It’s hard keeping track of all the places I’ve visited as within the past few weeks I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the country. It certainly seems that way anyway.

The Easter break of six days was a very welcome one. Just being able to relax, unwind and enjoy not haring around was bliss. I’m just a real ‘home bird’ so I really appreciated seeing all my family when we had a celebratory get together. This was to congratulate me on my contract with Northern Ballet Theatre as well as my Mum’s birthday.

The days passed by sooo quickly - as days off always seem to do - and soon we were back at school rehearsing the Ballet Central programme once again. The next tour that I was involved in travelled to Hexham, Wakefield and Colwyn Bay, on 3 consecutive days. This was one of the toughest tours for the Ballet Central cast as the constant travelling and late nights began to catch up on us. Staying opposite a nightclub in Wakefield didn’t help matters either!

Feeling exhausted wasn’t the only factor that affected the company’s mood or performance on tour. Adjusting to each venue was at times unsettling. Some stages were wide and flat whilst others were small and raked, meaning steps had to be adjusted accordingly. Only performing one night in each town meant there was little time to familiarise yourself with each venue. I suppose this is all part of the great learning experience that Ballet Central offers and something that we’ll all get used to.

Since the beginning of the tour, I’ve had to play catch up with learning the pieces of the programme after rehearsing and performing NBT’s Swan Lake. Now that I was secure in the steps, I had the new challenge of learning Helgi Tomasson’s Handel pas de deux, to perform with just a week to go! This piece involves a great deal of trust and confidence in your partner and also means taking responsibility for two people, so a week is a short amount of time to rehearse. I thoroughly enjoyed dancing it though as it is a soft, lyrical piece, quite a contrast to what I’m usually cast to dance.

Touring with Ballet Central was not the only way I got to see more of the country as Swan Lake was back on the agenda for NBT so I became a swan again for the first two weeks in May. This time we visited Norwich and Canterbury. It was a great opportunity to get to know the company and the way they work again as it is only a matter of weeks before I join as a company member next season! At least I won’t feel so unknown and unfamiliar in July, which is always daunting when starting somewhere new. I even had a fitting for next season so I began to feel part of the team already!

It’s an exciting time with much to look forward to, so I’ll keep you all informed as to what the future months bring.

Ashley Dixon's May Diary

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all well and had a good Easter holiday even though it seems like ages ago. Since I last wrote we have been really busy as usual with Ballet Central. We have been so busy that we only had a 5-day break for Easter (no rest for the wicked).

Saying that I’m having a lot of fun and learning loads not only about dancing but also about technical set up at the theatre. Since I last wrote, I have been to many places ranging from Hertford, to Hexham and all the way to Colwyn Bay. Out of the places we’ve been recently I think the hardest part was the Hexham, Wakefield, Colwyn Bay tour.

This tour started on the 21st April when we left base and travelled up to Hexham. We spent the whole of the following day in the theatre, culminating in a performance that night. It was a 5.00am start the next day to travel down to Wakefield where we did the whole day again. This venue was a bit special for me as I had all my family and friends watching - I was on the biggest adrenaline rush ever. However after the show when we got back to the hotel my body just gave up - but I still didn’t get to bed till gone 12. This would have been fine if we hadn’t had to get up at 5.00am again ready to travel to Colwyn Bay. On the way there I was thinking how am I going to do this, I can hardly open my eyes and I have to dance tonight. However as the day went on I managed to find some energy and by the time of the show the adrenaline had kicked in again. Sleeping on the coach ride back to London didn’t come soon enough.

Normally after a run of successive venues away, we have the next day off, but not this time. We were in on the Monday morning first thing for a class watched by the director of Royal New Zealand Ballet. Luckily we were granted the following day as holiday to rest – and I was fit to drop! Since then we have been in London rehearsing ready to go to Scotland.

On to the job hunt. In my last diary entry I was waiting to hear from NBT - unfortunately I didn’t get it. But since then I have been asked to go out to Slovenia for 2 weeks in June to work with The Slovenian National Ballet - so fingers crossed. I also have an audition for Phoenix Dance Theatre on 8th May - I’ll keep you informed. There are a few other things in the pipeline but they’re not definite yet so I’ll save them for next month. Anyway I think I’ve caught up on all that’s happened so I’ll be off. More soon, Ash

April (the hard work continues, more auditions)

Well, we're back at school, after yet another tour (Hexham, Wakefield, Colwyn Bay). This was a very hard tour mainly because we had great distances to travel between the venues but also because they were on consecutive days. This meant 5am starts, 3 hour coach rides between venues, get-in, rehearsals and performance - and then repeat the next day. You can imagine that by Colwyn Bay we were all extremely tired. However we were buoyed up by some very responsive audiences, especially in Colwyn Bay.

The coach became a very strange place in the mornings - a psuedo dormitory with the whole company extending their sleeping hour on the journeys between venues. We had people in the aisles, on top of each other and even the admin team slept on some occasions. Hexham is a lovely town and we were lucky to have two nights there. We arrived late Wednesday and checked into our hotel (luckily right next door to the theatre). That night was spent relaxing and taking advantage of a quasi-lie-in, the next day. Full English breakfasted, we rolled into the theatre and began the usual tasks of; laying the floor, rigging the lights, washing our costumes. Lunch is followed by class and rehearsals, followed by a snack dinner and the performance, the get-out, and bed.

Next morning up very early (very kindly the Hotel laid on a delicious breakfast at 5.30am!!!). To Wakefield and another rake - so class was fun again! The theatre in Wakefield was really nice and despite the rake the performance went really well and the audience seemed to really enjoy it. I must admit there were times when I could not remember what I had just done (probably just tiredness).

The hotel was close to the theatre which was good in some respects but it was quite noisy and so a restless night was followed by a nice quiet sleep in the coach.

Colwyn Bay was good fun. We arrived before the van with all our "stuff" and so some of us went down to the beach and some brave souls even tested the water. The stage was small but the audience were amazing - they really got involved in the pieces and it was a joy for us to perform there.

The week after this tour was quite disjointed, but ideal in terms of recovering from touring. Monday saw us doing class for Royal New Zealand Ballet director Garry Harris. I had been looking forward to this for quite a while - it is a company I would like to have joined, however there were no jobs going on this ocassion. We also later in the week got the afternoon off to go and watch them rehearse Romeo and Juliet, which was great. It is quite strange that even though we all love performing and often get frustrated when we are not, there are times when it is nice just to sit and watch.

We are all now looking towards our Linbury Studio Theatre Gala on the 25th May, as well as other tours up in Scotland......