Ballet Central Diary

Richard's January Diary

Dear Diary,

Hello again and Happy New Year!! I had a great Christmas holiday with my family and a good rest too. We started back on 6th January, and David Nixon was watching class, which was a bit scary for our first class back.

We’ve got straight back into the swing of things as rehearsals and fittings etc got underway. This week should be a busy one. On Wednesday and Thursday we’re having our Ballet Central photo shoot, which I’m looking forward to.

The rep for the tour is coming on. I really love the pieces we have, but at the moment the majority of works are more contemporary-based and it feels like we need more classical works. We’ve been told this is set to change however with several new classical pieces entering the repertoire, including a pas de deux that David Nixon is creating on us.

Also this week, Central is holding the first Central Friends Trust Awards, an award scheme that gives students a chance to win a bursary to support dance-related expenses by performing a solo and giving a presentation on how you would use the money. This is a particularly good opportunity for us third years that are starting what could be a very expensive year of auditions and travelling. I’m going to be dancing a solo from John Neumeier’s A Cinderella Story, which I learnt from Otto Bubenicek last summer in Prague.

This coming week also sees the return of Aurora Bosch, a teacher from the Cuban National Ballet School, who comes every year to teach for about a month as part of an exchange between CSB and the Cuban school and company. She’s an incredible teacher: she was prima ballerina with the National Ballet of Cuba in the 1960’s, and she still always warms up with the splits!

That’s about it for now; I’ll let you know how it all goes soon,

Richard.

Verity's January Diary

Dear Diary

Happy New Year, I can’t believe it’s already 2005! I spent this Christmas in Slovenia, it was very cold but really beautiful. There are a lot of cool (and cheap) cafes and bars in Ljubljana, which is where I stayed. While I was there I got a chance to see the Slovenian National Ballet perform Youri Vamos’ version of The Nutcracker. It was interesting and I enjoyed it – especially Bernard Courtot de Bouteiller, one of the Principal Dancers. He had the most amazing feet and body.

Well, the holidays are sadly over, but it’s good to get back to Central and to start working hard again. Not much has happened yet - we only started back on Thursday last week - but we have a very busy term ahead of us!

David Nixon is choreographing a piece for Ballet Central – I think it is a pas de deux – and so was watching class the other day. Actually it was the first class back after Christmas, so that was pretty scary and we all felt a bit off our peak.

This week the photographs for Ballet Central are being taken so we’ve been preparing for that with costume fittings and rehearsals. We also have the Central Friend’s Trust Awards this Friday. They’ve been set up this year to give financial help to students and I’m one of the fourteen students that have been shortlisted. We each have to prepare a solo and presentation. I’m pretty nervous about that because we have not had much time to rehearse and I don’t feel prepared for it. I am performing Gamzatti’s variation from La Bayadère, which can also be performed in Le Corsaire. I really like the variation but it’s hard. It is basically all pirouettes and jumps - by the end I’m dead, I really need more stamina! I have seen Darcy Bussell perform this variation on video and she makes it look sooo easy.

There are loads of auditions coming up: Boston ballet is on Wednesday in London and this weekend a group of us are off to the Netherlands for the NDT II audition, it’s scary but I can’t wait. Going to these places to audition is so expensive, so wish me luck in the Trust awards. There isn’t anything else for now, but I’ll let you know how the photographs, awards and auditions go in my next entry.

Verity xx