The Academy of Northern Ballet will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) programme it runs with a fundraising Gala to support the dancing stars of the future. The summer garden themed Gala will take place on 29 June, organised by Northern Ballet’s Leading Soloist Hannah Bateman. It will include exclusive performances by the Academy’s CAT students, past and present, as well as afternoon tea and a drinks reception.
The Academy of Northern Ballet is the official school of Leeds based Northern Ballet, one of the foremost professional ballet companies. It specialises in offering a holistic approach to teaching, nurturing and inspiring the professional dancers of the future and is the only recognised Centre for Advanced Training specialising in Classical Ballet in the UK, with students securing vocational training places at schools including the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and English National Ballet School. Training programmes are offered at professional level, and a wide range of classes at recreational level are available for anyone from the age of 18 months up.
The Gala performance will take place in Northern Ballet’s Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre and will see current CAT programme students perform as well as returning CAT graduates. Performers include Matthew Topliss, now dancing full-time with Northern Ballet, Andrew Tomlinson, who has been training at Canada’s National Ballet School since graduating from the Academy in 2012, and Charlotte Tonkinson, who graduated in 2013 and was the Academy’s first to go on to train at the Royal Ballet Upper School.
Northern Ballet’s CAT programme runs in collaboration with Northern School of Contemporary Dance which offers contemporary dance CAT training. Together, the combined CAT scheme was the first in the UK and has now been joined by a further nine Centres for Advanced Training in the UK offering dance training to young people.