Helene Cooper Blog

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Economics?…I realised this wasn’t for me. And after only a year studying for a GCSE I dropped it and took up GCSE Drama. I had decided that if I wasn’t going to be financially successful I would seek a career that I would thoroughly enjoy. If it hadn’t of been for Mr.Houghton, a boring economics teacher who talked of nothing except football and tailored all exercises to his love of the sport, I may have been well on my way to being an extremely rich International Investment banker by now… so thanks for that Mr. Houghton!

© Max. Surprisingly this is me.

I came to the conclusion that being a performer would be a very satisfying career and so I completed a GCSE in Drama in just a year. But this new direction was not entirely random. For the first year of my GCSE’s I had been attending dance, drama and singing classes. A good friend of mine, Leah Bennett, whom I have sadly lost touch with suggested that we go to Pineapple Dance Studios. We were typical school kids with nothing to do but fed up with sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon and decided to get out the Yellow Pages to see what entertainment we could find. Encouraged by pop videos on MTV we looked up dance classes and found that Pineapple Dance Studios also had a Performing Arts School on Sundays and the next week we were enrolled taking classes in Drama, Jazz and Street Lockin’, Jazz/Funk & Musical Repertoire, Street Jazz and Singing.

This lasted for a term but then Leah moved to another school and I wasn’t yet confident enough to go alone. And so out came the Yellow Pages yet again and out it stayed for a while, so much so that my mother began to refer to it as my ‘bible’. I began calling up all sorts of places which actually took quite a lot for me to do as I was still fairly shy and hated calling people I didn’t know. I came across Italia Conti Theatre Arts and discovered they had Associate Schools aside from their main school and one of these was based in Bow ,which was fairly local to me. I enrolled at Italia Conti, taking a LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) Acting class, Singing, Jazz and Grade 6 Ballet. This was my first Ballet class (other than that with Mrs. Carr) but I was told I should take a Grade 6 class because of my age. I was fifteen by this point but much older than the other girls in my class (the eldest being twelve) and much less experienced too.

I took quickly to dance and would have taken it for GCSE but my High School – Wanstead High - did not offer it then. Having looked at their website recently I found it interesting to see that it is now a ‘specialist college in the performing arts’. Everything always seems to get changed for the better soon after I leave.

It was soon time to decide what I wanted to do for my A-Levels. I knew that I didn’t want to stay at Wanstead High – I get bored easily anywhere and have realized I’m the sort of person who needs to move on quite frequently. After receiving an award for progress in Ballet my Ballet teacher suggested that I apply to The Brit School for Performing Arts and Technology. Out came the ‘bible’ (Yellow Pages) and I contact them for a prospectus.

I started to think about my career as a dancer. A good dancer, I thought, would be an all-rounder, skilled in singing and drama as well as dance. And so I chose to apply for the Musical Theatre course at The Brit School. Due to my lack of experience I didn’t expect to get an audition at all and applied for a Performing Arts Course at Epping Forest College in Essex as my more ‘realistic’ choice. However, to my surprise I received an audition for the Brit School. Towards the end of the audition one of the teachers called out a list of names and asked us to remain in the room if our names were not called out. I sat there hoping I heard my name but unfortunately I didn’t. As I walked through the building on my way out I thought to myself that there was such a nice atmosphere and that it would have been lovely to have studied there. I was almost home when I received a phonecall. Apparently there had been a mistake and my name had gone on the wrong list. They asked me if I minded going back for an interview and of course I obliged. Thankfully I was told there and then that they were accepting me on the course.

The Brit School was a fantastic place to study, a very unique environment that encouraged creativity in every way. Over the period of my course I was determined to strengthen my ability as an all-round performer and took extra classes in ISTD Gold, Silver and Bronze Jazz Dance, Grade 6 Ballet, Pointe-work Ballet and ISTD Intermediate Modern dance since we only received Jazz dance and contemporary dance classes on the musical theatre course. I also took Private Singing lessons. The Brit School also had good links with the arts industry and the Musical theatre department had links to Bird College.

Towards the end of my course at Brit the opportunity arose for some of us to have Ballet classes with Miss. Town who taught at Bird College. This was a great eye opener for us as we were subjected to a style of teaching much stricter than what we had been used to. Usually, I hate to be told what to do. My mother says I’m too independent for my own good which is probably true. But I enjoyed Miss Town’s ‘Sergeant Major’ approach and respected her a great deal. As a result of this on finishing at The Brit School I enrolled at Bird College studying all aspects of Musical theatre. But as it is quite clear I am not currently working in the Musical Theatre profession…for an explanation of my second change of career please tune in for my next blog.

Posted by Helene at October 7, 2007 01:02 AM