Audition!!

On Sunday, I had my audition at the School of Ballet Theatre UK. When I arrived at the audition, everyone was stretching and warming up; that was then I realised, each of these girls wanted a place just as much as I did, success is never guaranteed in this harsh industry. The class was led by Elisabeth Haslam, the ballet mistress of the Company, with a panel of judges; Chris Moore and Tania Matos, who I already knew from Associates, as well as four other people I didn't recognise. Throughout barre, I focused on artistry and musicality, carefully articulating my feet on each tendu, smiling warmly at the judges. The exercises were quite complex, but easy to learn and joyous to dance.
In the centre, we were given a complex sequence of adage, which, to my horror, I managed to mess up quite spectacularly; my ability to balance seemed to have utterly deserted me. I felt so embarrassed, yet determined to maintain composure.... The next little catastrophe was in the battement tendu, which involved a single pirouette. Midway through the pirouette, I realised- everyone else was still in demi plié. Oh bugger. I wished the earth would swallow me up- but nope, I had to keep going. In the pirouette enchainement, I noticed that number five, a pretty girl in a blue leotard, landed neat triple pirouettes on nearly every turn. Oh, great.


Being number 14, I was glad to be in the last group to dance, as it gave me more time to learn the combinations- however, I only managed the triple pirouette to the right, not left... By this point, I felt utterly despairing, humiliated and so disappointed in myself. The grand allegro was very pretty though, lovely to dance :) Then, we had to take off our shoes & roll up our tights so they could see our feet. Demi plié facing front, then tendus. Left, right and middle splits. Pointe shoes on. Uh-oh. Pointe shoes?!! No one had mentioned that pointework would be involved- I had instinctively thrown the first pair I could find- which happened to be very dead- in my bag just before leaving home. Dancing in dead shoes is not good at all. Managed to survive the pointework section without falling flat on my face....


The next class was contemporary, and it went a lot better than the ballet class!!!!!! The dance was so beautiful and expressive :) there was one slightly scary moment though when Chris said 'okay. Same dance, now reverse it and start on the left.' To my shock, I actually managed to work it out! :) After contemporary, we had a physio assessment and interview; being number 14 meant I was last, so I had a very long wait!!!! The other girls were lovely and talkative though :) I think the physio went well, its hard to tell really because I didn't know what each of the strange tests was looking for!!! The interview was probably the easiest part- just babbling on about how much I love dance, dance is my life, etc etc!!! Now, the longggg wait for results, only time will tell.......

Little Mermaid

Last week, i went to see Ballet Theatre UK's Little Mermaid. it was so awesome, the costumes and choreography were amazing! the Company are so inspiring; seeing Clair, the teacher from Associates, dancing onstage, was so wonderful. All of the dancers were phenomenal; Sarah Mortimer was so beautiful as the Mermaid, her technique and musicality are divine :) And Natalie Cawte was stunning as the Prince's bride! i chatted to Chris, the Artistic Director, after the performance, which was lovely- he mentioned that the Company have 85 performances, across the UK, woah that's amazing!!! i feel super inspired for the School audition next week!! (i am really struggling to focus at academic school recently, all i can think about is dance, it is my world.....)