Author: Jessica Wilson

Auditions: both life-suckers and lifelines. They are an integral part of a dancer’s work and often deliver the news that you didn’t make the cut, like the majority of the other dancers who auditioned. It is sometimes irrelevant as to whether the auditions was difficult or enjoyable, ultimately the outcome is not personal. For the dancers that nailed the audition – for reasons such as sound technique, great performance, or even blonde hair! – they simply fitted the bill better than the others, and may not necessarily be better dancers.

If you gave an audition your all but did not get a callback, rejection can work in your favour by making you a stronger performer. It is easy to wallow in the various (hypothetical) reasons as to why you were not offered the job, but the experience can be turned into a positive by dealing with it in the right way. Always remember that you are never in control of the casting director’s decision: there are many factors that go into selecting one individual for a role over another. Those in charge might simply be looking for a certain height, even if you kicked your legs the highest and smiled the widest!

Replaying the unsuccessful audition afterwards is not healthy. There will be other opportunities: what counts is being prepared for when the right one comes along; don’t dwell! Alongside this, ensure you learn from your mistakes and grow a thick skin – it doesn’t pay to be sensitive. There will be many unsuccessful auditions and let downs throughout your career, so let them go and use the negativity to make you stronger.

Develop your confidence by improving your technique and practicing your skills. When you are a dancer fresh out of college it can be difficult to deal with rejection. Go to as many auditions as possible to help you feel comfortable with the process and what you have to offer. Sooner or later, you will win a role, and others will go home rejected, wondering why!

For many dance students, this autumn will mark the beginning of their dance courses, be them degree level, vocational or just for fun! For those beginning their dance degrees, a lot of hard work awaits, interjected with innovative learning and fun too! It is important to make the most of your time studying; before you know it you will be out in the professional world – for some students, the biggest shock is having to pay for dance classes that came as part of their studies!

The start of your degree is essentially the beginning of your career in dance and the arts. There will be many challenges and lots of hard work along the way, and it is vital to stay motivated when the pressure rises. It may be a shock to the body when the course starts, due to the substantial increase in the number of hours of training. Dancing five days a week for several hours can hit the body hard, and without looking after it this can spell difficulty and even injury.

For some dancers this can take the excitement and enjoyment out of dance, with the increased load affecting them in a negative way. However for most the added hours are welcome, reinforcing the passion for dance and learning more. Try not to lose the sense of anticipation for dance classes and work to gain something different from each dance class or lesson you attend. Be sure to maximise the benefits of both the technique and academic classes, by embracing this component alongside your study of dance technique itself.

Many students must also fit in part-time work around their studies, which can sometimes be a challenge through spending so much time in the studio or library. The contact time of a dance degree is high, meaning students have access to resources and tutors – by attending university – all day, all week. Make the most of having this wealth of opportunity at your finger tips, it won’t last for long!

World Ballet Day Live will return in 2015 with a 23-hour live stream hosted by five of the world’s leading ballet companies on Thursday 1 October. Following last year’s collaboration for the first World Ballet Day, streamed footage will be available again from The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The Royal Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, and San Francisco Ballet.

The day will be a celebration and an opportunity for audiences to see behind the scenes. It will also include pre-recorded footage from a wide range of dance organisations close to the five participating companies; those confirmed include American Ballet Theatre, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Boston Ballet, English National Ballet, Hamburg Ballet, Houston Ballet, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal, National Ballet of China, Nederlands Dans Theater, Northern Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet and Scottish Ballet.

The Australian Ballet once again kicks off from its Melbourne headquarters. This presentation includes a day in the life of the company; from the universal ritual of daily class, to rehearsals of Artistic Director David McAllister’s new production of The Sleeping Beauty, and four other productions that will tour to China later that month.

Next, the Bolshoi will present the company in its daily routine with highlights of the 240th season. The day will begin with morning class and rehearsals, followed by a report on two world premieres from last season—Radu Poklitaru’s Hamlet and Yuri Possokhov’s Hero of Our Time—as well as special projects which were announced last year.

The Royal Ballet will follow, airing exclusive backstage footage from London. As well as morning class, filming will follow the preparation of a matinee performance of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet featuring Federico Bonelli and Lauren Cuthbertson. Rehearsals for the world premiere of Carlos Acosta’s Carmen which opens in October will be broadcast too.

Audiences will see The National Ballet of Canada on tour at the Place des Arts in Montréal, Québec, including a rehearsal of Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale. Following will be a dress rehearsal of works by William Forsythe, Marco Goecke and Wayne McGregor, focusing on how ballet companies prepare for performances while on tour.

Lastly, San Francisco Ballet will stream company class and rehearsals of the works the company is preparing for the 2016 Repertory Season, and a autumn tour to China. The broadcast will also feature live interviews with Artistic Director & Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson and The Royal Ballet Artist in Residence Liam Scarlett about his Frankenstein, a co-production with The Royal Ballet which SF Ballet will perform during its 2017 Repertory Season.

Over the past year, in partnership with Eastside Educational Trust, the talented Daniella Rice and Patrycja Cygan have been following three Step into Dance Youth Company members, as they progress through their academic year, in order to gain an insight into the Step into Dance Youth Companies.

Step into Dance, led by the Royal Academy of Dance in partnership with the Jack Petchey Foundation, is the largest ongoing, inclusive secondary school dance programme in the UK. It provides focus, creative experience, live performance opportunities and a chance for young dancers to further learn and develop through its work in over 200 schools throughout London and Essex. It is the largest provider of dance for schools, and is going from strength to strength.

The Step into Dance Youth Companies involve some of the most gifted dancers on the programme, who rehearse weekly during term time at the Royal Academy of Dance. The dancers receive a high level of training from professional teachers and perform at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Piccadilly Theatre and Sadler’s Wells. This year the Programme will be launching its Inclusive Youth Company, a new creative company that will bring together dancers from mainstream and SEN schools, specific ones Step into Dance works with.

Daniella and Patrycja have followed the students on their Step journeys and have created a film, gaining an overview of the companies and a snapshot of what it’s like to be a member of the Jazz, Street and Contemporary Youth companies. Some dancers are members of more than one company, relishing the opportunity to express themselves through being part of the Step into Dance programme. Each dancer involved has developed in their skills, as a result of the highly motivating team.

Iconic British dance company Rambert will present The Future, an evening of new choreography co-curated with its partner venue The Lowry, Salford, on 3 October 2015. The Future is part of Rambert’s choreographic programme to develop a generation of diverse artists who are ambitious to work in large scale spaces and collaborate with artists from a variety of disciplines. The programme also provides choreographers from within Rambert with performance platforms, access to technical knowledge, mentoring and the opportunity to create work with world-class dancers.

2015 will see Rambert extend these opportunities to external dance artists for the first time, as well as to Leeds-based choreographer and founder of DeNada Dance, Carlos Pons Guerra, to create a new work with Rambert dancers. The programme will then include works by Rambert dancers Luke Ahmet, Simone Damberg Würtz, Patricia Okenwa and Pierre Tappon. The Future will also feature new works by Leeds-based company the MiddletonCorpus and Newcastle-based Lo-Giudice Dance. This is the first time Rambert has worked with young choreographers from outside the company in this particular way, and it is the first time it has presented choreographic platform events in north west England.

Choreographic development is fundamental in Rambert’s work: it has nurtured generations of choreographers who have gone on to have long-standing careers such as Rambert’s Artistic Director Mark Baldwin, Rafael Bonachela and Christopher Bruce. Emerging choreographers such as Miguel Altunaga, Malgorzata Dzierzon and Alexander Whitley have also been supported at the start of their careers, and The Future will extend this by opening platforms up to young choreographers.

Rambert’s choreographic programme is consequently developing its national reach, through collaborations with regional venues such as The Lowry, producing performance platforms for both Rambert choreographers and emerging dance makers across the UK. The Lowry’s reputation as a regional hub for dance performance makes it ideal for presenting this unique insight into the future of dance.

The biggest dance show in television has returned to BBC One this autumn, with its celebrity dancers now confirmed. Ainsley Harriott, Anita Rani, Anthony Ogogo, Carol Kirkwood, Daniel O’Donnell, Georgia May Foote, Helen George, Iwan Thomas, Jamelia, Jay McGuiness, Jeremy Vine, Katie Derham, Kellie Bright, Kirsty Gallacher and Peter Andre will all be taking part in the highly anticipated competition.

Returning for another year is Strictly’s much-loved judging panel: Head Judge Len Goodman, in addition to Darcey Bussell, Bruno Tonioli and Craig Revel Horwood, who will again be the panel of dance experts that this year’s celebrities will be dancing to impress. At the launch, the celebrities discovered which professional dancer they have been paired up with for the competition, in a bid to win the Glitter Ball Trophy.

Once the celebrities and professional dancers pair up, they have three weeks to train before returning to the ballroom to perform live every week. Each week the two couples with the lowest combined scores, from the judges and public vote, will face each other in the dance off, with one couple leaving the competition. At the halfway stage the show will travel to the international home of Ballroom dancing where the dancers will perform at the world famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

The professional dancer line-up welcomes three new dancers: Russian-born Dancing With The Stars favourite Gleb Savchenko, 2012 Italian Champion Giovanni Pernice and eight-times South African Latin American Champion Oti Mabuse. They will be joined by Aliona Vilani, Aljaž Skorjanec, Anton du Beke, Brendan Cole, Janette Manrara, Joanne Clifton, Karen Clifton, Kevin Clifton, Kristina Rihanoff, Natalie Lowe, Ola Jordan, Pasha Kovalev and Tristan MacManus. This year Joanne Clifton will join the It Takes Two team as their resident dance expert, hosted by Zoe Ball.

American Repertory Ballet has recently announced its events taking place in September based around the community. Along with Princeton Ballet School, American Repertory Ballet will be participating in community events throughout Central New Jersey with a multitude of events. Community events are an important part of the company’s activities, giving it the opportunity to connect with neighbours and share the happenings of the stage in the studios and in schools.

Cranbury Day is an annual event at the heart of the town, and each year, American Repertory Ballet Workshop students perform in Princeton Ballet School’s Cranbury studio. Additionally, American Repertory Ballet takes part in the festivities in the street, with giveaway items, chances to win free tickets to an upcoming performance and photo opportunities. American Repertory Ballet Workshop is a performance group made up of pre-professional Princeton Ballet School students, including members of the American Repertory Ballet Trainee programme: ARBW Juniors dancers are advanced Princeton Ballet School students.

As part of the city-wide Hub City Sounds summer arts series, American Repertory Ballet’s international Trainee dancers and George Street Playhouse actors will present “Be Unstoppable: Celebrating Healthy Kids in the Arts.” This interactive day of theatre, dance, food and family activities is ahead of performances from ARB’s dancers of a children’s ballet. The performance will include opportunities for participation and Q&A with the dancers as part of the day of free activities.

13 September will see American Repertory Ballet and Princeton Ballet in attendance at Septemberfest – an annual autumn festival at Veterans Park in Hamilton, NJ. Later on the company will also be present at Arts in the Park, where dancers will also provide a children’s performance. Attractions at both Septemberfest and Arts in the Park will include crafters, organisations and funfair games, as well as more giveaway items and an opportunity to enter to win free tickets to an upcoming performance.

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Director David Bintley is swapping the stage of the Birmingham Hippodrome for The Palace of Versailles in his latest TV appearance. ‘The King Who Invented Ballet: Louis XIV and the Noble Art of Dance’ and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s newest work ‘The King Dances’ is set to be broadcast on BBC Four on 13 September at 8pm.

Bintley will present his second programme for BBC Four in 2015, following the success of the March 2014 documentary ‘Dancing in the Blitz: How World War II Made British Ballet’. The King Who Invented Ballet is an hour long documentary showing how Louis XIV’s patronage and passion for dance in 17th century France brought about the evolution of ballet, from propaganda in the French royal court to a professional art form in its own right.

Bintley goes about discovering the roots of classical ballet as it is known. Ballet significantly developed during the reign of Louis XIV; it was central to the lives of the nobility and Louis ensured that it would develop into an art form that could be taught, preserved and shared, commissioning the invention of dance notation and the foundation of the world’s first ballet school – the Académie Royale de Danse.

Also focused on is Bintley’s creation of The King Dances, a new one-act ballet for Birmingham Royal Ballet which received its world premiere at Birmingham Hippodrome in June, and will receive its television world premiere following the documentary. The piece explores Louis’ journey to kinghood, inspired by the Ballet de la Nuit, a 1653 dance work. Featuring an original score by Stephen Montague, costumes and designs by Katrina Lindsay and lighting by Peter Mumford, The King Dances is performed by fourteen male dancers and one female dancer.

A new international opportunity for emerging dancers and choreographers in 2016 will be formed by the Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance and Choreography, for the attention of dancers and choreographers all over the world. The Pina Bausch Fellowship is being offered for the first time next year, and applications for this new scholarship close on 1 October 2015.

The home of the late Bausch’s company is Wuppertal in Germany, however amongst its benefits, the Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance and Choreography will offer grants for a temporary residence at renowned institutions for dance and choreography abroad. It will also offer a placement in an ensemble or with a choreographer at home or abroad in order to provide much hands-on experience, yet this opportunity is as yet unpaid. The Fellowship will also provide the opportunity to study with renowned dance teachers either at home or abroad, furthering training and offering a different perspective to dance and performance.

The recipients of the Fellowship are not receiving a completely ‘free package’, however if the scheme is feasible to those who apply, it will offer a huge wealth of experience as part of the arts industry and working with a European dance company. As a result of the Fellowship, the recipients are expected to discover new forms of expression and to extend their repertoire of dance movements, gaining worldly experience whilst practising their art. Their artistic development will be further developed too, creating well-rounded dance artists of today.

The minimum length for each Fellowship is three months, with the maximum at six months. The Fellowship, of which up to four are granted each year, will also include a monthly allowance of €2500, in addition to one-time travel expenses. For more information visit https://fellowship.pinabausch.org/en/fellowship

It is rare for a music video not to involve dance, and the twenty-first century is seeing more and more recognisable dancers feature in the videos. Whilst music stars would perform in front of professional dancers regardless, today dance is featuring largely in the videos, the most well-known recent example being Sergei Polunin, the notorious ballet dancer, taking centre stage in Hozier’s Take Me To Church.

The balletic display by Polunin in the video is a delight for dance fans, likely used to escape the convention of backing dancers. For Hozier, Polunin created an alternative music video for Take Me to Church that was later sanctioned by the singer. It has been said he used Hozier’s hit song ‘to explore the agony of the discipline involved in his career’, having previously abandoned two prestigious ballet companies in a bid for personal freedom for his incredible – yet rebellious – talent.

Similarly, Tree of Codes, choreographed by the iconic contemporary choreographer Wayne McGregor, was testament to the ambition of pop star Jamie xx. This plainly shows that pop stars and musicians are turning to dance, and particularly ballet and contemporary, for alternative visuals. McGregor has since worked with Mark Ronson, Alison Mosshart, Boy George and other pop artists, to great critical success. One of McGregor’s dancers has even danced for Paloma Faith at the Brit Awards and with Thom Yorke of Radiohead in a video.

Another high profile example of particularly contemporary dance in a music video is Sia’s Chandelier, featuring young dancer Maddie Ziegler. The Australian singer went on to make two more videos with Ziegler in the same style, ‘almost like three acts of a ballet’. Despite this, it is clear that the dance world is still a long way away from pop music, even though the genres of dance are now crossing each other more easily.