Michelle_Richer

Grrrr still problems with hall bookings, we have lost Fridays booking this week for Adrian’s PDD practice, I thought Oh well we can move it to Monday morning as that is usually free, although I cant normally use that time, but my normal classes are closed for the bank holiday, wrong, its booked. Each step forward we do, its almost one back for him to keep the 6 minutes of PDD in his body. I have managed to find another studio for Monday afternoons since loosing Sleaford for that day. I’ve also joined their evening adult ballet class as a bit of a thank you. The teacher described it as RAD intermediate, so I’m bound to get into trouble when I dance the barre. At least Elmhurst have got used to my wafty port de bras, something I inherited from Tom my teacher at ENB, as he was very performance orientated, god I miss that guy, the best teacher I ever had. Studio extension footings going well, my brother has agreed to do the brickwork and Adrian has volunteered move the road-stone ballast in place with a bucketed digger machine once the brickwork is done. At least Tuesday night at our Alive rehearsal we had a lot of happy bunnies when I took our new show tutu’s in for checking dancer’s sizes, everyone looked stunning.

Life just seams to get even more challenging, I was really looking forward to the Easter break as most of my ballet classes had shut down except for our Tuesday rehearsals at Dance Alive. On the bright side the large tree stump left over from Storm Doris has now been removed at a cost of £900 (ouch) but it did take a digger and lorry with a crane to remove it. That has allowed us to start on the footings for my new studio extension. The real down side is reliability and availability of studio space. Firstly now I’m down to 2 hours a week of PDD practice with Adrian for Ballet West, instead of 4, as continuity is essential. Because of Adrian’s work commitments we can only accommodate this on a Friday evening (5pm – 7pm). However anticipating good Friday may be a problem , I checked with our local shop/Post Office that held the keys to the Hall that they would be open and no special events was on at the hall, all was reported as ok. When we arrived for the key at 4.45pm, guess what, they were closed, they had closed early, oh poo. Tuesday after Easter on the train to London I received an email from the Ballet School that I hire a studio for a couple of hours on the Monday, to tell me Monday availability had been withdrawn due to rescheduling of staff. However they did ask me to contact them as they would still like to accommodate me and to explore my options. Unfortunately as it stands Tues , Wed and Thurs morning that are available as one of there Admin staff are in, are not available to me. My Friday bookings are still OK with them, although I did look at the possibility of moving my Glen Ballet rep classes back to Thursday evenings, immediately after their Improver Ballet class, which would most probably help support their ballet class numbers, although there is studio availability for an hour after, I do need at least 1.5 hours. That would have reduced my Friday loading which at the moment is five and a half hours of ballet plus travelling between three separate locations, this leaves me well drained for the weekend and even worse with getting up at 4.30 am to get ready for a full day at Elmhurst one Sunday in four. Thursday, normally 2 hour down my local hall which was booked, only to find Physio has done a full days booking, looks like a one off, but no one had informed me Grrrrr. I will be please when my studio extension is done. Wednesdays going forward, I have deliberately pulled from my ballet /fitness schedule to concentrate on progressing the studio extention.

Hi RachelC You could try Lisa Marie Probert on strengthgraceballet@gmail.com as I know she used to run PDD classes on Sundays in London , but they may not be there now, but its worth a try. Also try DanceAlives “Ballet Bootcamp” on the 4th of June 10:00–17:00, at the Place 17 Dukes Road, WC1H 9PY London . It consists of: Ballet, pointe work, variation, repertoire, pilates, boys “jumps and turns” and pas de deux (TBC, depending of male dancers). Further details and booking http://www.dancealive.london/workshop/ballet/

Wow Susan Would love to come, but sadly we are out at Liverpool that week end, when your group are performing again, do let us know on this thread, and good luck with the performance xx.

By some degree of consensus most of our dancers of The Alive Ballet company have decided a preference for the Bell-Shaped tutus for our summer performance of Paquita, for that we will be designing and making our own decorated tutu over-skirts. Bell-shaped practice tutus seem to be very rear and those that exist are extremely expensive, well over £100 against £40 to £60 for a good classical (pancake) practice tutu. I spent a few hours travelling around the ballet shops in Covent Garden trying on classical practice tutu to find one with enough droop to pass as a bell-shaped one, as one of our dancers suggested Bloch. I tried the Block one on, but it remained too flat for me. The best I found was from Sansha, but the droop was only slight but well made, however it could be a candidate if we could make a multiple layer overskirt to enhance the droop, possibly with adding a hoop or two. I’m not a tutu designer at least not yet, so I’m not sure if it would work or not. If anyone has any ideas of possible suppliers at around the £40 - £50 mark, or ways we could adapt an existing classical practice tutu base, as many of our dancers already have these, I would be most grateful

Since Adrian my boyfriend and PDD partner has started working again I have lost him to share in our joint PDD coaching sessions. It’s also meant I have lost my Friday run down before the weekend. Its almost like the old days, in order to accommodate some time for Adrian I have had to SWEEZE another two hours in on a Friday evening to keep the PDD work going, that five and a half hours of ballet every Friday now. Saving grace, Easter is coming. Not only that Sunday was also full day at Elmhurst which is always tiring with the long drive there and back. However the journey there and back this time was quite pleasant as it was all in daylight and the sun shining for most of it. The highpoint of Sunday was the last class where for the second time we had some rep for the centre work and it looks as if we will have the same teacher next time and a little more rep too, just love it. But never the less I was dog tired when I finally arrive home later that evening. At least with Adrian out of the ring during the week, it’s freed some time to get on with the solos for Ballet West. The Black Swan is just about done but I don’t like the musicality with my fouettes, however I have found a way around them involving just a bit more port de bra to soke up the excess time. This week was the start to look at Sapphire, for this we took the ending first as it’s easy to separate out from the music. For this we looked at a menege of coupe grand jete enturnant, unfortunately there is enough music for 16, the intention now is to limit it to eight, and find for want of a better word, some pretty turns for a spectacular finish on the diagonal. One of the issues I have with my left leg is slight movement in the knee joint, this was a problem with the fouettes at one time but most of it was down to poor technique. As I have not used this type of menege before I am finding my left (back) leg is week at pushing the Grand Jete up and over in comparison to my teacher, also a little bit of it may be psychological in trying to protect itself from injuries I have had in the past, so I guess I need some effective strengthening exercise, like loads and loads of plie’s and jumps.

Oh Whoops LinMM, sorry about that. However I remember when I used to perform in Wisbech Cambs with the school at the Angles Theatre, it always used to be from non-classical music. That really wasn’t to my taste as I am a stickler for dancing from the Ballet classics, I did try and persuade them but sadly I failed. However I did have more success at my Lincoln class when I persuaded them to perform something from Coppelia. Here are 3 pieces we danced to at the Angles Theatre : Somewhere only we know Lilly Allen Knights in White Satin Sensual Sax Le Valedon Diamonds Rihanna. The one outstanding thing I will say about performing at the Angles, they did a brilliant finale to end the show

As several have already said “David Plumpton’s Modern Melodies”, has some lovely pieces for ballet class. I remember a few weeks ago, our standby teacher was late for our rehearsal ballet class, so we had to start off the barre session ourselves, I had my tablet with me, needless to say we started it with Plie’s from David Plumpton Titanic theme, LinMM will remember that, its drop dead gorgeous. Another one which is very similar in style but based on ballet rep is Craig Wingrove’s Musical Gems XXI Repertoire 2 for Ballet Class. For stretching at the end of class I do like “The Mission Gabriel’s Oboe”, that does move your body and soul, we used that in one of our “Alive” shows, when most of us heard it for the first time we were almost in tears with emotion, its so moving

There’s a couple of repertoire workshops coming up at RAD Battersea. The first is on the 21 may 10.15am, for Giselle, follow link: https://www.rad.org.uk/events/giselle-adult-repertoire-workshop The second is on 22 July 11.30am for Swan Lake, follow link: https://www.rad.org.uk/events/swan-lake-adult-repertoire-workshop There is also something else being promoted called “Discovering Repertoire”, a classical ballet performance programme, is an innovative new concept from the Royal Academy of Dance. The programme focuses on well-known classical ballet repertoire, meaning students will learn and dance choreography they have seen on stage, set to music they know and love. The variations studied are taken from ballets including Coppélia, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. I spoke to Susie Partridge of RAD about this, they do not have a launch date as yet, its expected to be sometime in 2018.

Hi TYR I think your other one may have been LinMM as I think she was going. I did ENB Swan Lake masterclass at Markova House about a year ago, they do seam to follow the same type of format which I’m not too keen on, as the rep time gets watered down a bit. I must confess I do miss their upper studio as I spent somewhere between 3 and 4 years attending my two Monday classes with them and of course if the company was on tour I would get some additional time in the studio for practice before class, I loved that, it was like home. I left a few months ago when Tom my teacher left and the advance class was dropped. As part of LAB sometimes we would use ENB’s upper studio for dress rehearsal. I don’t know the two pieces which featured in your rep, I tend to stick to the main classics, however I was with Northern Ballet on Thursday learning a bit of rep from their new production of Casanova. All the time I was with ENB I never heard the Orchestra play in one of the studio’s, although rehearsals often ran right up to class time. If it did they would usually allow us to go into the studio and watch just before our class time. I did see them rehearsing the Black Swan solo the last time they were to perform “Swan Lake in the Round”. I wonder what piece of Black Swan music was being played by their Orchestra while you were there. Adrian my boyfriend and I are taking the Black Swan PDD up to Ballet West in August. It has seemed to take forever to learn, mainly as we have picked it up so many times due to Adrian’s injuries and medical issues etc, however this week for the first time we danced it all the way through, warts and all. Hopefully it will just need polishing now.

Might I suggest a completely different solution, use NCH Debut Screen Capture Software. If you can display it on your screen, by running the DVD, you can capture it, both sound and vision, and it will permit the recordings to be saved in the following file formats: .MWV, .AVI, .ASF, .MPG, .3GP, .MP4, .MOV and .FLV It also allow you to set the size of the capture area and of course the start and end, particularly useful if you want only to capture a particular short phrase or variation. Needless to say you can capture the whole DVD but do remember you wont have the menu system selection that you had from the original DVD. Basically any video activity that appears on the screen from either a webcam, youtube or DVD can be captured in this way. Good luck.

Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts. When I first see the devastation my thoughts were, oh well no one was hurt and the house insurance would cover the damage. When I finally read through the policy document there were so many disclaimer, I was beginning to think nothing was covered. Fencing was excluded as was trees, so I phone the Insurance policy help line expecting the policy to be worthless. However much to my surprise, the fact that the tree had damaged my house in terms of ripping part of the upvc cladding off with the telephone line, at least the tree removal, telephone line repair cost and upvc cladding replacement were all covered, but not the fencing panels. Neither was the large broken willow tree branch that landed in our river. However the following day while Adrian and I were in the garden looking to see what could be done to remove the willow branch, a guy from the village popped in to see if he could help. He and his two brothers had log burners in their houses and they offered to come and cut up the tree in the photo and take all the logs away. They were my knights in shining armour, although it took them all weekend, they cleared that tree all but the stump and the twiggy branches, I thought how wonderful it was to have such helpful neighbours. It also took Adrian and I all weekend to remove the willow branch from the river, as we had to cut it up bit by bit, then from one of my little boats, rope it and drag it to shore. The only thing we were left with was a large bunch of twiggy branches, on the Tuesday Adrian was casually chatting to my Garage mechanic, and he said he would take the twigs as he uses almost anything for a pot bellied stove he keeps at a workshop he has for his stock cars. He is bringing a trailer round this weekend, but it will take several trailer loads to clear it. I know I felt the fact I had been working muscles I don't normally use, as on Monday morning when I attended my first fitness class, which was really hard and I was as stiff as a board, the ballet classes that followed seemed ok. With the loss of my Thursday Progressive Ballet Technique I went back to the Sleaford class I once did which was quite fun, however I want to take that opportunity to look around the area, there is a RAD school in Wisbech which I need to check out and also The Cambridge University Ballet Club which holds 2 classes a day over 6 days a week, but it takes as long to travel there by train as it does London, so that looks like a car journey. My RAD Adult Associates sessions this Sunday, which is normally at Elmhurst, has been moved to the BRB studios in Thorpe Road Birmingham. Our body conditioning class has also been replaced this time with rep, we will be doing something with the Peasant Dance from Act1 of Giselle, and I’m really looking forward to that. The sessions I’m really looking forward too if they come off are: the 6th annual international Pro Viva la Dance Master Class in Mikkeli Finland together with Vaganova Ballet Academy in July, but that’s by no means in the bag just yet.

These guy are running mostly 2 classes a night over 6 days a week, I will be checking them out in the next week or two. They seem to be a very significant amateur company and their classes are open classes.

What a week that was: 1) Received my planning permission for the studio expansion 2 weeks early, really pleased about that. 2) Thursday Progressing Ballet Technique classes discontinued due to low number, I can say I was surprised, as 50% of the time it was a one to one, I’m sad to have lost that one. 3) Thursday Storm Doris hit while I was at the hall running through a two hour rep practice run only to find one of my large trees uprooted and broke our telephone line and in the process breaking part of our upvc cladding away from the house that supported the telephone line. Other damage included destroying 4 fence panels and dropping a really large branch from our willow tree into the river adjacent to my home. One comfort is that no one was hurt by the falling trees and non fell across the road adjacent, also my property remained secure, it could have been far worse. 4) Being in bit of a quandary as what to do, I phoned Adrian my boyfriend as I would normally pick him up for the weekend after my PBT class, but I had planned going via Just Ballet at Wisbech to order Adrian a couple of Ballet Tunics for our session in the summer at Ballet West. After a chat with him, it was decided to stick with the original plan, besides I thought going out in the wild weather would be a bit of an adventure. 5) It certainly was an adventure and quite dangerous too. The buffeting from the high winds combined with the impact of the draught from passing lorries going in the opposite direction was enough to release the bonnet of my car, thank goodness the safety catch that limits the opening held until I was able to stop, that was quite freighting. That happened twice and I had to keep my speed below 50mph. I was travelling along side of a field with agricultural workers in it, when I see the blue portable toilet take off and came tumbling across the field towards the road, it was clear it wasn’t going to stop and it could very well collide with me. Not far behind me was a lorry, so I couldn’t just slam my breaks on, I had to make a run for it with the foot hard down on the accelerator, it crossed the road just behind me and in front of the lorry and carried on across the field on the opposite side of the road. Few! that was close, only to find about another half mile down that road on a blind bend, some conifer trees had blow down, blocking the opposite side of the road, and traffic was crossing on my side with no prior warning, that was brakes hard on, thankfully there wasn’t an incident but it does shake you up a bit. I was really pleased when I finally arrived at “Just Ballet’s” new gorgeous shop at Wisbech. Needless to say from Wisbech up to see Adrian via Peterborough there were a lot more trees down but not across the road, a road closure to but not one that impeded me. 6) Friday due to my uprooted tree issue, sadly I had to cancelled my Glen Ballet Group session, but managed to squeeze Adrian's sessions in for prep for Ballet West..

I came across this last Saturday at Ballet West’s performance of Swan Lake in Edinburgh. Odette was played by Natasha Watson and Odile by Uyu Hiromoto . For me the choice of these to dancers for their particular character rolls was brilliant, Odette came over as gentle and vulnerable, whilst Odile had real fire and attitude behind her expressions and movement. I also remember seeing a version of Ballet Theatre UK Swan Lake about a couple of years ago, where both Odette and Odile co-existed in the same acts, however it did depart quite a lot from the traditional story.

In a couple of weeks I should hear if planning permission has been granted for my home studio expansion, if it does, then planning my time line will become extremely tight. Especially as the build of the foundation is down to Adrian and me, with a little expertise from my Brother. The structure itself is down to the suppliers of the large upvc conservator structure, then the finishing off of the sprung floor, lighting system and reinstallation of video and sound systems is down to us. It’s certainly going to take months to complete rather than weeks. One other issue that has come apparent today is the amount of work Adrian and I have left to do in preparation for our visit to Ballet West in August. Today was the first day back for Adrian after many weeks away from ballet. Neither of us has worked on the Black Swan PDD for several weeks and there is a huge amount we need to relearn. Some of it I can do on my own, to that end I now have booked another two hours a week at the hall in place of my Body Balance class at the local Gym, so I’m seriously considering dropping my subscription to that gym as its little used now. I also have to be mindful as to how much I place on Adrian’s shoulders as bless him, he it not and experienced dancer and I really don’t want to push him too far and I know he is feeling the pressure as I have had to drop two of the PDDs we had planned and at least 3 solos. Its certainly going to be tough times going ahead for Ballet West, Our Summer Show at Alive Ballet, and the studio extension all competing for time. At least this weekend turn out really nice at Ballet West’s performance in Edinburgh on Saturday. I arrived early to get a chance to chat with Gillian before most of the audience arrived. Whist we were chatting a young lady came to the stand and said a very knowing “hello”, I did the same back but I must have had a very puzzled expression. The young lady said we did class together 3 years ago, “I’m Odette in Swan Lake today”, it was Natasha Watson and I didn’t recognise her. I also got to chat to a few more of the dancers between the two shows, including Uyu Hiromoto dancing the Black Swan. The choice of the two dancers for those parts was absolutely right, Natasha as Odette came over as gentle and vulnerable, whilst Uyu the Black Swan had real fire and attitude in the expression in her face and body language, one of the best Black Swan characters I’ve seen, what was even more remarkable, in the Black Swan PDD, the arabesque/ pirouette section which usually has one to one and a half turn supported pirouettes x 3, had clean doubles with next to no effort, it was awesome. I thought Uyu was a professional guest dancer, until she told me she was a Ballet West student. I actually got to see both performances. After the last show I went to the reception and chatted with a small group of their female dancers, they seem to be amazed that I was still dancing. I think most of the guys other than Jonathon Barton were guest dancers, I had a chat to one of them, he was from Ballet Cymru. I was only sorry Adrian couldn’t make it with me this time. It really was a fantastic performance to see.

January has been a very problematic month, especially with my car write off and buy back and getting it repaired to get in back on the road again, I’m pleased that’s over. Adrian’s mum died so no PDD practice with him from several weeks back until after the funeral this week. Hall booking becoming unreliable due to some Physio company booking for whole days. I’m still looking for good contingency locations. Some of my own Glen Ballet group have been off with this nasty flue type bug that’s going around, so progress with that group is falling behind especially with the guys On the bright side RAD Adult Associates Elmhurst has good numbers to continue but it looks as if we are alternating each month between Elmhurst and the BRB studio in Birmingham itself. One piece of positive news, RAD has said its ok for me to attend their CPD modules. On the sadder side, according to Debbie White RAD’s Regional Manager – Northern England, Adult Associates at Northern ballet in Leeds didn’t have sufficient numbers to get it off the ground. I tried booking on the closing date but that facility had already been pulled. My real highlight has been the lead up to Alive Ballet Company’s “Scratch Night”. The was a total of 3 weeks spent on creating and dancing a piece either as solo, PDD or group. Each dancer in the company could choose as I did to choreograph my and dance my own solo, or be part of a group. You didn’t need to dance, you where able if you wanted to attach yourself to a group and give feedback, I has someone with me the second week providing feedback. The Scratch Night was a sharing night with a friends and family audience. For that, each performing group had to produce a small synopsis of their piece, which would be incorporated into the Scratch night program which would be handed out to our audience. The other brief we had, the piece was supposed to be limited to 2 minute. Mine came out at 2min 20 seconds, but my teacher was happy with that. The second week was a full rehearsal, that went better than expected even though it was an unusual sized studio, the applause for each dancer extremely enthusiastic if even had an encore from a couple of our dancers. Oh gosh I couldn’t let that encore pass, so for our final week I wanted to include, but hec would my teacher allow it. Then performance day came, I was 7th on the list, only to be greeted by my teacher to say I’m sorry but you are second on the list in the program. Our first girl gave a beautiful performance on pointe to Hallelujah. With a nice reverence to the audience, then our teacher came across to the dance to take questions from the audience. Oh poo I thought I’m going to have to say something of my encore piece after reverence. Well I did and she seemed comfortable with it. The dance itself went reasonably well, after the enthusiastic applause, I think my reverence was a little rushed as I had programmed in to my music an applause for practice together with a 5 seconds of silence before my encore. The applause finished I took up prep centre stage and nothing happened, my teacher look across at me a little bewilder not knowing what to do, as I said don’t come across until I have finally finished. Bless her when she heard the applause on the track, she stopped it as she thought I had finished. O’dear best plans of mice and men and ballerinas. I did get to re-run the ending which was a short Cossack style dance to the fouette section of the Swan Lake Russian Dance, which does give it a powerful ending. Next week we start on Paquita for our summer show. All booked up for my rep intensive with Ballet West this summer again, hotel too. I do get to Gillian this weekend as I’m seeing their Swan Lake performance in Edinburgh and her son Jonathon is dancing the principle roll of Siegfried, the last time I see him, he partnered me in one of Ballet West’s body conditioning sessions with a teacher called Ben. I’m really looking forward to it, even if its very much a flying visit.

Hi Linn, They won’t close RAD Adult Associates at Elmhurst now they have healthy numbers. I see they are also doing RAD Adult Associates at the Northern Ballet Studios at Quarry Hill in Leeds, unfortunately there are only two sessions this next term 28th Feb and 30th April. Also the requirements are not related to RAD grades as with Elmhurst, this is how Leeds is describes them: “Choose from one of four levels... Focus on Technique & Body Conditioning: suitable for all, general level, can be combined with any one of the other three classes. Improvers 1: suitable for those with up to 3 years experience. Improvers 2: suitable for those with over 3 years experience. Intermediate: suitable for those dancing at Intermediate level and beyond, no formal qualifications required 10.00–11.15am: Improvers 1 11.30am–12.45pm: Focus on Technique & Body Conditioning 1.30–3.00pm: Improvers 2 3.15–4.45pm: Intermediate” It may be a pilot scheme, perhaps someone on the forum may know. I must confess I am somewhat attracted to them as Leeds is on the East Coast main line and is generally easy to get to. However there is not a train available the same day to include the first two classes, only the last two, as it would normally be my intention to cover all four classes as with Elmhurst. PS Closing date for Leeds 6th Feb

On the booking part of the link I see its been changed to the 23rd of Jan. Whilst we now have good bookings, there are still some spaces left for all four classes.

No PBT at Elmhurst today, it was more waking up the feet in preparation for pointe plus some more general body conditioning.

Hi Lin I don’t think this should be seen as something that’s competing, for me I did 4 fitness classes a week anyway, without counting RAD, some of more value than others. Sadly the best one I did, I’ve had to give up as the associated ballet class for that evening has been moved. But never the less I do, do a lot more ballet than body conditioning. What is interesting Lisa Howard recommends those that follow her “Front Splits Fast” program, do three sessions a week to start with. My Monday Body Conditioning class occasionally do something very similar using the large Swiss balls and smaller one too. As she is not normally geared up for that I usually take a couple of Swiss balls in of my own. I like Kate_N teacher’s idea of incorporating Body Conditioning into some of her workshops, what a fantastic place to introduce PBT. For me I will most probably use a few of the PBT exercise that focus on the areas I want to improve eg a developpe with a sustained high extension, but there are so many more. Hi Moomin, the school is in the little South Lincolnshire Market Town called “Market Deeping”.

Hi Kate_N You will really enjoy PBT, I was introduced to it at RAD Associates at Elmhurst as part of their Body Conditioning class. Unfortunately we never quite know what we are going to get until the day with Body Conditioning as it taught by various different teachers, and its down to the teacher as to what they put into that class, some teachers bias it heavily on preparing the feet for pointe etc, but its always interesting and enjoyable. However a few months ago when I was on the hunt for a new Ballet Studio to hire near to my boyfriends home, I came across a school with teacher that taught PBT, she teaches it three times a week. I now attend her Thursday class and have done so for a while now, sadly that class is not well attended, as at least 50% of the time, I am her only student, but she seems quite happy to keep teaching it to me as a one-to-one, for me it’s really fantastic, but she always manages to bring out those extra little challenges. I think the hardest thing is not the exercises themselves but the stamina needed to keep going through a whole track of music; it certainly is strength building as well as enhancing balance. My teacher recommends PBT is done three times a week, it will be interesting to hear your teachers take on the attendance of PBT I’m hoping we may get some more PBT at Elmhurst tomorrow (Sunday).

The reason I have posted this as a single thread rather than added it to an existing one, is to raise its profile due to its closing date and numbers reapplying. I have just re-booked this series of classes for the next term restarting on Sunday the 5th Feb, and the numbers are looking painfully low, consequently I am concerned that ultimately they may be withdrawn from RAD at Elmhurst. Follow the link for details and booking https://www.rad.org.uk/events/adult-associate-classes-1

Thank goodness back to ballet on Monday, at least I have managed to refill my sleep bank with a few extra hours over the holidays, but never the less I still carried on with the hall. However I did get one outing on the 30th with an ENB rep workshop on the Spanish Dance from Nutcracker on the Coliseum stage, one of the best ones I’ve had for a while from ENB, really enjoyed it. It was also nice to meet up with other Balletcoers, My old friend LinMM, Doormouse and Moomin. New year wasn’t the party I was hoping for, Adrian came down with a really nasty cold, so we didn’t go out, however during the first week of Jan I have managed to get him back to where we were with the Black Swan PDD before his injuries, but the Russian dance PDD still need a lot of cleansing via my coach. Essentially I need to teach her Adrian’s new chorography so she can dance Adrian’s part with me, while I get Adrian to video it for his reference and practice. We have done that before and it seems to work well. The Russia Dance solo fouettes seem to have get neglected a bit, although I have run through them for about 10minutes on each of the sessions, but it does seem to take me a little while to get into those. I will certainly be running through those with my coach Monday morning, hopefully get them a bit more attractive. Wednesday is going to be the acid test for me, as for the moment I don’t have a ballet class for that day since my class at Sleaford has combined with there Thursday class, however there may be one on the horizon. One piece of good news, I now have copies of my Studio extension plans, I just need to cross my Architect palm with a lot of silver and he will submit them for planning approval. Guess that’s going to take a few more weeks. Tuesday back in London, as its after our last show we have about three weeks of master classes to improve focusing on technique, then something completely different that we have never done before, work on our own piece of ballet, which can be a group piece or a solo, it up to us and we get coached on it too. Needless to say my choice is my version of the Russian dance solo from some Russian versions of Swan Lake, that’s a real bonus for me. We get three weeks to work on it and then do a “Sharing Evening” for friends and family to come and see us perform it in the studio. I’m really looking forward to that and hope I can make a good job of it, as it will eventually go up to Ballet West with me in the summer.

I don’t know if this is of interest but RAD Adult Associates at Elmhurst 249 Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B5 7UH, these are non-syllabus classes which start a new term Sunday 5 Feb, closing date for applications 16th Jan. I do all 4 classes as it over a hundred miles car journey for me from home. For details and booking, follow the link : https://www.rad.org.uk/events/adult-associate-classes-1