Ballet Central Diary

Flying low

So, once again I am the last to fill in my blog. I would complain that I am struggling to find the time with so many rehearsals but in doing so would fall helplessly into the stereotype that men can't do two things at once. Instead i will go with the excuse that I lost my sheet with my password on it (special thanks to Naomi and Emma Laird for finding it out for me and none to Brenda and Rym for doing naff all), so with Frank Sinatra playing in my ear I will let you all know what has been going on... my way (i apologise). First of all i thought i would go for the sympathy vote and let you all know that i have been injured for ages and done hardly any dancing which was a massive pain in the. I have not mentioned this before but while we are on the subject i will take a quick moment to run through Tom's injury list. I started the year with an osteoid osteoma in my foot (If you are really bored look it up) and had surgery before Christmas to get it out. Came back after the holiday and gave myself a very painful back spasm which lasted 5 days. The day after that I sprained my ankle and so have not been dancing for 10 days, great! Being the brave soldier that I am I made my way up to Scotland having not done a class for 2 weeks and braved the cold and the 6 girls who accompanied me to audition for Scottish Ballet.
The audition was a lot of fun and very good experience but I had to sit out of the last exercise because of the old ankle and unfortunately failed to get past the final hurdle. Well done to my wonderfully talented other bloggers who jammed there way in and should find out very soon if they have a job, nice one girls! The plane journey was a fantastic laugh and we certainly kept ourselves entertained by playing games (Me and my darling friend Jenny played the word association game, I thought i had her when i started with lightbulb, FILAMENT!!! she shouted, I was defeated). On the way back we met a lovely Scottish bloke who found himself stuck between us all but he soon warmed to Rym and her cockney accent and joined in the fun and games. We had a ball although spending half an hour trying to work out which celebrity Brenda was thinking about before she admitted she didn't really know their name was not so fun.
Tonight we have an in-house performance which I unfortunately am not involved in because of injury but hopefully it will all go well, good luck to everyone!
Finally I will finish with a joke, simply because no one believed i would have the guts to do it. I was going to tell you the one about the wall but I don't think you would get over it. Take care, speak soon
Tom x

As busy as a Bee/Brenda!!

I just cannot believe it is February already. William Glassman – Artistic director of Ballet Central, makes our days so flowing from one rehearsal to another, that if I would not look at the clock while in the studios, I would not even realize that I would have been there for the past seven hours.
Today, after the Waltz of the Flowers rehearsal, we all gathered around Bill, listening to him, and at a certain point I started wondering about the fact that he likes to keep us at school as long as possible, I am not being negative, even though I was eager to go home, however I was thinking how sweet it is that he always talks to us in the end and finds it hard to let us go home. I admire him! I think if we would not be tired, he would keep on rehearsing for ever….. : - )

Tomorrow we are having the ‘Ballet Central Friends Preview’. I am performing Cinderella along with Nick, for the first time. I am really looking forward to it and hope it all goes well. It is also my first performance here in London!! I will also be involved with the Loading Team. As 3rd years, we are divided into groups so as to work on different areas such as helping with the costumes and front of house. In my opinion it is a very good and interesting learning experience, and a challenging part of the course.
On Tuesday, we are having another event – the Central Trust Awards. I am so glad I have been short listed for this competition; wish me luck! GOOD LUCK from me to all the other participants.

I was one of the girls Rym mentioned, who went to Scotland for the audition on the 1st of February. I got through till the end together with Rym and another five girls, and she forgot to mention how fast we had to run to catch the train afterwards!! It was a bit panicky and funny wasn’t it Rym. I really liked Fearful Symmetries. It is the kind of thing I would want to be dancing in my carrier. I like Ashley Page’s work; and the audition was such a good experience and opportunity to work with him. Having worked on Waltz of the Flowers – which is taken from his Nutcracker, has helped through the audition and the audition itself, in turn will help me through Waltz.
I also had another audition last weekend, that of Matthew Bourne. I was called back on Monday and enjoyed a three hours audition. Auditions are not scary after all; they are like free of charge workshops with well know and very talented people and directors. Laurel, Sophey Allen, Rebeca and Chelsy also got through. The piece I enjoyed most was the small choreography we did from Carmen. I love that Ballet.
So at the moment I am eagerly coming home and opening my emails to see whether I have got any news. Lets just hope for the best and God will do the rest!

I got to go… long day tomorrow good night….. be back sooon

Glasgow- cold winds, warm hearts

February kicked off with a bang yesterday- I went to Glasgow for an audition for Scottish Ballet. Lots of my friends went, and when we got there, there were loads of dancers from other schools that we knew. The dance world is so small, and all the dancers within a certain age group all tend to know or know of each other- schools, summer schools, associate programs and now and then, a few parties!!
The audition took the form of a class and then a call back later to learn some of the company’s repertoire. Ashley Page seemed so nice and actually eager for everyone to get something out of the audition, and I really got a friendly and relaxed vibe from everyone in the building. Even the city as a whole was friendly- although Glasgow is the coldest place I think I’ve ever been in my life, the people are incredibly warm. I did have a tiny tourist problem however with the language- I felt like the cockney gran character from Catherine Tate most of the time. Luckily, there was a northerner among us- Jenny Wagstaffe from Durham, who adopted the vital position of interpreter (and is supremely talented at languages- she speaks brilliant French and is one-eighth welsh!) helped us communicate with some lovely train officials at the station who went out of their way to help us find the company’s studios. We also made friends with a man on the plane coming back, who not only didn’t mind us playing guess the celebrity and word association games at the top of our voices (which, believe me, is loud), he even joined in!!
I was really pleased to be one of seven girls who got called back to learn some repertoire with the ballet mistress. We learnt a short section of material from Ashley Page’s ballet Fearful Symmetries. It was hard but exhilarating and since being home I’ve looked it up on Youtube (the most wonderful thing ever that deserves a Nobel Prize) and the piece looks amazing. It was great to learn something so physical and challenging, and also to work with the choreographer himself- he didn’t just watch, he really got involved and worked on the detail of the movement with us. I was really glad I’d had the opportunity to do Waltz of the Flowers so much at school, because I felt almost as though I had a head start on the style- still very much a novice, but not completely groping in the dark. Even though that helped me, while learning this phrase I realised how much more I could bring not only to Waltz, but also to a lot more of my dancing, so that one hour really taught me a lot. I will hear soon from them what the outcome was, so watch this space!

More job news to report- last weekend my good friend Ruan Crighton went to Bratislava to audition for the company there, and got the job. Apparently the money there is almost chocolate buttons, and Slovakian can't be too hard to pick up, so I reckon he’ll have a great time!! Kate Ewing, our Canadian Ballet Central member has a contract with Cedece in Portugal- she’ll have a permanent tan!
As March 12th approaches with dogged determination, we are doing a number of little amuse-bouche Ballet Central platters for various events. Last week, some girls went to the Critics Circle Awards at the Opera House to perform some of Choice, and there is another Quite Important event approaching. Friday 8th is the Central Friends preview. We’re doing quite a few pieces for it- I’m doing David Nixon’s piece, which now has a name and shall henceforth be referred to as Steps to Bach. (Or possibly just Steps if I’m in the middle of creative literary flow.) I’m also doing the Rose in Waltz of the Flowers, which is scary because in the last rehearsal I fell over spectacularly in the first section, moments before our director Bruce Sansom walked into the studio to watch the piece. I don’t really fall over very much, but when I do, it’s at important times when I really shouldn’t, and it tends to be quite epic. (Better then than at the Linbury, though!) It’s also scary because this piece has nine people dancing as big as they can with a huge amount of energy at breakneck speed in a smaller space than they are used to- it’s going to be such a rush!
An extraordinarily long entry- possibly even rivalling War and Peace. Should really shut up now……..