Perseverance pays off!!!

Well, after 3 months, 5 applications, and 1 audition, I am proud to say that my summer holidays are at last sorted. I've had offers of places from.Midland Theatre Ballet, Opes International (a new residential course in Nottingham) and Ballet Theatre UK emailed me today to offer me a place on their Pre Professional Summer Course- and Associate Scheme!! Yayya! After Elmhurst, I thought I'd get no offers at all this year... Now i've got three!! :-D :-D So happy!!!

Summer School Audition

Wow! I went to an audition on Sunday for Ballet Theatre UK's Pre Professional summer course. There were only 7 others in the audition but I thought that it went really well (although we were told where to stand at the barre, we weren't allocated places in the centre so I aimed for my usual favourite spot; centre front :-D my place at the barre was perfect too; right in the middle of the back barre!) I really think it was the best class i've ever danced. Barre was long and quite challenging, but the teacher, Chris Moore (Director of BTUK) explained all the exercises very thoroughly and made us feel at ease with lots of witty comments! In adagio, my favourite part of barre, we had to do a developpe devant; I knew this was a step I could do well, so with my foot well above shoulder height and a lovely slight cambre, I turned my head to give the judges a somewhat smug Cheshire Cat grin. It worked; the female judge smiled back and mouthed "Wow". Yeyya!!! That was when I knew I'd got a reasonable chance of getting in. In the centre, we started with a lovely ports de bras, followed by adage with pirouettes (caught sight of a nastily sickled foot in the mirror during a fouette to arabesque- whoopsie!) then a very pretty pirouette enchainement. Moving on to petit allegro (which I always dread- too fast!) we warmed up with a rapid sequence of small jumps. Then, to my delight, came a simplified version of my MTB ballet mistress Olivia Pickford's favourite enchainement; a sweet waltz of glissades and assembles battus. At last, we travelled from the corner, in a vivacious grand allegro, leaving me exhilarated, feeling for once as if I had truly out-danced all the competition :-D

Solo Choreography

Had an exam in Dance at school, on my Solo Choreography. It went really well, despite a minor injury... Basically, at the end, I fell forwards onto my hands and knees, banging on the floor. On Thursday, when I rehearsed it, I managed to bruise my wrist quite badly. I pursuaded mum to not take me to A&E- she wanted to, though!! I decided to ignore it and do the exam- I ended up in the nurses' office ten minutes later with an ice pack. Whoopsie....
Hopefully it'll be worth it though when we get our grades!

Graham Fletcher Ballet Associates

Went to an audition yesterday for the Graham Fletcher bsllet associates. I was lucky enough to get a  private audition, meaning I joined in a normal class, instead of attending an open audition later in the year. The standard of the class was absolutely phenomenal; it was without a doubt the hardest class i've ever done. It was utterly amazing, and I loved it- although the other girls seemed quite intimidating, as opposed to welcoming. I guess they justsaw me as a threat- although i'm no competition at all to them!!
Graham spoke to my mum afterwards, and said that I don't quite have the right physique to make it to Principal level of the Royal Ballet, but he seemed to think i had some potential, because he invited me back to the next class, which is on June 9th :) Hopefully then i'll be able to impress him enough to gain a place! :)

Beauty And The Beast

Super excited to dance with Midland Theatre Ballet, in 'Beauty And The Beast' this weekend! We have 4 performances, Thursday-Saturday, plus dress rehearsals tonight and tomorrow. (Someone'll be exhausted!)
Unfortunately, my school's mock GCSE exams week is also this week, so i'll be taking lots of revision with me to rehearsals! Luckily, i'm only in the corps de ballet, so I have a lot of acting but not much dancing, so hopefully my pointe shoes won't wear oout too quickly! I've seen some of the costumes; a pink romantic tutu with a sparkly bodice, a magenta knee-length dress, and, for the Wolves dance, an incrdible chiffon short dress, with bits of feather and twig coming off it!! I haven't seen my Villager costume yet, so hope it fits!!! :)

Update; Well, that was an interesting catastrophe! Most of the costumes fitted- except the sparkly arm-bands on my tutu looked more like bracelets, they were that big :P
The Ballroom Polonaise and Curtain caalls wer an utter disaster. In Act 3, I came offstage to get changed for the Polonaise- and realised that I was meant to still be on stage! Whoopsie!
And I had literally a pas de deux and Rose solo to get changed from the tutu into a full-on Wolf costume; change of hsir, makeup, costume, shoes... Argh!!
Hope tonight's final rehearsal goes a bit better! xxx

Another pair bite the dust...

Oh great. With Beauty And The Beast looming, I'd got a pair of pointe shoes broken in ready to wear. However, last week, they decided to snuff it. The shank of my left shoe snapped, to my utter disgust (and dismay.) They were nice shoes- once i'd got them broken in!! Capezio Glisse, with a regular, full shank, they had a lovely box, not too tapered, so very pleasant to pirouette in. I have got a new pair of Capezios, this time the Glisse Pro, with an extra-strength shank. Hopefully they'll last through Beauty And The Beast, then a couple of auditions; I now have 2 weeks to get the ribbons sewn then break them in. Luckily, I'll only be wearing them once a week until opening night; i have a 'rota', meaning I have 3 different pairs of shoes on the go at once, they last longer that way! xxx

Perfectionism and slippy floors

At class yesterday, I was stretching before we started, and one of my friends said "Sophie!! Don't you ever stop practising????" My reply, I think, was a perfect portrayal of most dancers; "I am not perfect yet. So, no." (By which time, I was looking at her upside down, in my attempts to bend backwards and make my head touch my bum. :P Which, needless to say, did not work. The Russian, Vaganova-style flexibility is still very much a work in progress....)

Anyway. We started class with pointework yesterday and, as per usual, the floor was horribly slippy. After persistant moaning from certain people, the teacher produced a bag of roisin- a few minutes later, and certain patches of the floor looked like the victims of an abrupt snow flurry. :) No one slipped over in pointework class... Technique class was another matter altogether. By battements tendus and pirouettes, we were all beginning to regret our excessive use of roisin. My battements tendus went straight from a flat foot to a point; the roisin made any form of articulation totally impossible because our feet stuck to the floor, and I don't think anyone managed more than a double pirouette! Maybe slippy floors are good sometimes ;)