Ballet Central Diary

A New Year

So... a new year begins and, of course, rehearsals are as tiring as ever. The Christmas holidays were a welcome rest, at least for the first few days before daily jogs and classes at pineapple became all too familiar, but it was really nice to spend time with my parents, my sister, my mates and my girlfriend. However it did not last long and I was back at Central before i knew it, preparing for the excitement and the hard work of all the rehearsals and the tour. Our second day back and Christopher Hampson was in to select a cast and even took class in the morning, its safe to say they did not break us in gently after the Christmas break. Brenda, Rym and I were all cast which was fantastic news for us and the last two weeks have been endless rehearsals although it is well worth it, the piece is fantastic. I am told that Rym has already told you about our picture on the Ballet Central leaflet (we will put them up asap) so i need say no more on that subjest but there was more good news for me yesterday when Phil Aiden asked me if i could be in his jazz piece. Having not been originally cast I was very disappointed as i felt it suited me perfectly and to not even learn it was quite down heartening, however I was over the moon yesterday and am very much looking forward to kicking on and getting the piece finished. That is all the news for now, it has to be a quick update this time but i will write again very soon, i am just off to do company class with Matthew Bourne's New Adventures at Sadlers Wells so i will let everyone know how that went. Speak soon Tom

January again....

Well, its January again, and The Future (including Ballet Central's opening night and potential auditions for many company members) is that much closer.
Christmas passed in a haze of good food, games of trivial pursuit, and persuading my entire family that they really did want to watch approximately five hours of ballet on Christmas day. New Year’s Eve was spent having fun with other Ballet Central dancers and was a brilliant way to kick off 2008.
Since being back at school, life has been extremely busy. Rehearsals have started for Christopher Hampson’s piece, which has been really fun. Everyone agrees its a great piece, we love the music- Capriol Suite by Peter Warlock- some of which reminds us all of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme music- (cue thoughts of Johnny Depp......!) and the style is really interesting to get our teeth into. Its really cool working with him- he is very nice, and his choreography is so musical- which I appreciate because I get a bit stressed if I can’t hear exactly what I'm supposed to be dancing!
Rehearsals continue for the demanding Waltz of the Flowers and for David Nixon’s piece. I feel I need a lot more rehearsal in this piece- the musicality is quite controversial among the cast and I need to really get under the skin of the movement- explore it and find out what its about and how it works for me- so that is a task for the next few weeks!
An exciting occurrence this week was the release of the Ballet Central leaflet. I was apparently the most excited about it, but I feel I have reason to be grinning because I am on it twice- once with Tom in Cinderella and again (admittedly only the back of me) in Sara Matthew’s piece. Brenda is on the cover (and on the poster!) with Long in Bluebird. Its undoubtedly my five minutes of fame!
As well as all our Ballet Central rehearsals, everyone in the year has to prepare a solo to perform at graduation and write a dissertation on for the degree. Obviously, we all want to do the best we can do- apart from being extremely significant for the degree mark, the graduation performance in July is kind of your swansong at the school- all members of staff, the rest of the school and friends and family watch and it is a moving occasion in my experience. Therefore, everyone wants to choose a solo that really suits them but challenges them so that they can learn something from working on it. Initially I have chosen the Fairy Godmother’s solo from Ashton’s Cinderella because it is a beautifully lyrical solo with lovely music and lots of gorgeous epaulement. I still really like the solo, but I’m not sure if I will still do it for graduation- there are so many wonderful solos that I would like to perform, so a final decision will be delayed for as long as possible!
January and February are the two months in the year when most companies hold their auditions, so everyone is jetting off to all sorts of exciting cities including Copenhagen, Vienna and Paris. Two important auditions coming up which most people in the year will apply for is Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet Theatre. More news forthcoming!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope it all started on a positive note for everyone. Looking back; 2007 was a big adventure for me, I spent five months in France as an apprentice with the company Ballet d’Europe, 3 summer months in Malta and the last four months here in London. That is quite exciting isn’t it! Well I am now curious and wondering where 2008 will take me to. To begin with I know for sure that for the coming seven months I am going to be here in London with Ballet Central and that quite fulfills my life; I mean it’s always nice to know where you are at.
I spent Christmas holidays in Malta and had such a good time, however I was eager to come back here. It is the first time in my life that I was actually looking forward to go back to routine. The first exciting thing when I walked into school on Monday was seeing my name listed for the Christopher Hampson’s piece. To be honest, I wanted to be in it as I knew it was going to be something neo – classical, and that is my favorite style. It is coming along really nicely and I look forward to start the pas de deux with Daniel next week. Thanks God my foot is better, so I am now catching up on the entire repertoire.

Last but definitely not least – my picture is on the Ballet Central poster! The poster for this year is a picture of me and Long (one of the boys) in one of the Blue Bird poses. I am really fond of it and I like it. I am very hard on myself, I don’t please myself easily but I must say that the poster looks good. Then the same picture appears on the front cover of the Ballet Central program and moreover on the inside of the program there is another picture of me with the same costume in develope a la seconde. I have been so lucky, and I would like to thank all the staff for choosing my pictures!!!!

This has been a bit of brief news since we have only just started; however I was too anxious to let you all know about the poster!