Elmhurst Ballet School - Wayne McGregor appointed as Vice President

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Exciting times at Elmhurst.

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

And the official press release:

 

Media release: Thursday 28 February 2019

 

 

Royal ballet resident choreographer Wayne McGregor is appointed Vice President of Elmhurst Ballet School

new partnership between Studio Wayne McGregor and ELMHURST BALLET SCHOOL launched

 

Elmhurst Ballet School is delighted to announce its new Vice President, Wayne McGregor CBE, Artistic Director of Studio Wayne McGregor and Resident Choreographer of The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden. The appointment marks the commencement of an exciting new ongoing partnership between the school and Studio Wayne McGregor.

McGregor is the latest to join esteemed dance luminaries: Carlos Acosta CBE, Maina Gielgud AO, Dame Merle Park DBE and Sir Peter Wright CBE as vice presidents of the school. 

 

Studio Wayne McGregor and the school have planned a programme of activities, creating fantastic opportunities for Elmhurst students to work with its artists and explore Wayne McGregor’s choreographic repertoire and process. 2018/19 saw the commencement of the partnership with the newly created Elmhurst Ballet Company, which was granted permission to perform an excerpt from Wayne McGregor's Entity. Future plans include a new work to be created with Elmhurst Ballet Company in Birmingham and London in 2020.  Company Wayne McGregor dancers will also work with students from across the school, from Year 7 through to the graduate year, to create work for the School’s performance series. 

 

 

Other opportunities for students to work with Studio Wayne McGregor include talks by Wayne McGregor, mentoring and buddying opportunities between upcoming graduates and Company Wayne McGregor dancers, audition preparation workshops for Upper School students, and the opportunity for Elmhurst Ballet Company members to take company class at Studio Wayne McGregor. There will also be a possibility for Elmhurst students to be involved in Studio Wayne McGregor’s professional development programmes.

 

“We are thrilled to welcome Wayne McGregor CBE as Elmhurst Ballet School’s Vice President. Our students will benefit immeasurably from the opportunity to work with Wayne and his company. Wayne is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost choreographers working today and this partnership marks an extraordinarily exciting time in Elmhurst’s history.” Jessica Wheeler, Principal of Elmhurst Ballet School

 

“As Director of Studio Wayne McGregor and Resident Choreographer of the Royal Ballet I am thrilled to contribute to the vision and future programme of Elmhurst as Vice President. The creative training of young dancers has been a career long passion. As dance companies worldwide extend their repertoire, dancers need to be equipped with new skills that offer them the best chance to succeed. Studio Wayne McGregor is delighted to contribute to this fresh horizon and looks forward to working in Birmingham which continues to flourish as a centre of excellence for all forms of dance.” Wayne McGregor CBE

 

-ENDS-

 

 

Elmhurst Ballet School

Elmhurst Ballet School is based in Edgbaston, Birmingham and will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2023. It is a world-renowned centre of excellence in association with Birmingham Royal Ballet and prepares talented young dancers aged between 11 and 19 to become the thinking dance professionals of the future. The school nurtures individuality through a holistic approach to training, education and health, which helps students to become independent, collaborative and versatile artists, ready to take their professional places on the world stage. Elmhurst’s dance training is of the highest quality and is delivered by current and former dance professionals. It is enhanced by opportunities to work with Birmingham Royal Ballet, visiting choreographers and dance artists.

elmhurstdance.co.uk

 

Twitter: @elmhurstdance // Instagram: @elmhurstballetschool // Facebook: Elmhurst Ballet School

 

Wayne McGregor

Wayne McGregor is a multi-award-winning British choreographer and director, internationally renowned for trailblazing innovations in performance that have radically redefined dance in the modern era. Driven by an insatiable curiosity about movement and its creative potentials, his experiments have led him into collaborative dialogue with an array of artistic forms, scientific disciplines, and technological interventions. The startling and multi-dimensional works resulting from these interactions have ensured McGregor’s position at the cutting edge of contemporary arts for over twenty-five years. McGregor is regularly commissioned to make new work by and has works in the repertories of the most important ballet companies in the world including Paris Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Bayerisches Staatsballett Munich, New York City Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, NDT1, Australian Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet. He is in demand as a choreographer for theatre (Old Vic, National Theatre, Royal Court), opera (La Scala/ROH Dido and Aeneas, Acis and Galatea), film (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Tarzan, Fantastic Beasts 1 & 2, Sing, Mary Queen of Scots), music videos (Radiohead, Atoms for Peace, The Chemical Brothers), fashion shows (Gareth Pugh at London Fashion Week 2017), and TV (Brit Awards opening performance 2016, Paloma Faith’s Brit Awards performance 2015).

 

Wayne McGregor is Professor of Choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, has an Honorary Doctor of Science from Plymouth University and an Honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Leeds, and is part of the Circle of Cultural Fellows at King’s College London. In 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the British Science Association. McGregor topped the list for dance in The Progress 1000 celebration of London’s most influential people in 2018. McGregor's work has earned him a multitude of awards including four Critics' Circle National Dance Awards, two Time Out Awards, two South Bank Show Awards, two Olivier Awards, a prix Benois de la Danse and two Golden Mask Awards. In 2011 McGregor was awarded a CBE for Services to Dance. 

 

Studio Wayne McGregor

Studio Wayne McGregor is the creative engine for choreographer and director Wayne McGregor, and the home of his life-long enquiry into thinking through and with the body. It is a nexus of partners who explore movement, artistry, thought and partnership. With Wayne at its centre, this collaborative network encompasses dancers, writers, composers, producers, software engineers, visual artists, scientists and more. Studio Wayne McGregor fuels the breadth of Wayne’s creative work including the development and touring of signature works on his ensemble of world-class dancers, Company Wayne McGregor; a portfolio of international commissions across genres including dance, visual arts, film, theatre and opera; specialised learning and engagement programmes emboldening individuals in their own creative expression; mentoring and cultivating of other artists; and inquisitive research enterprises which look across science, technology and the arts to provoke questions about some of the extraordinary phenomena of physical thinking.

Studio Wayne McGregor opened its own creative arts space and dance studios, designed by We Not I, in April 2017 at Here East in east London; the first arts organization to be based on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

waynemcgregor.com

 

Twitter: @waynemcgregor // Instagram: @waynemcgregor // Facebook: Studio Wayne McGregor

 

Photography credits:

Wayne McGregor. Photography by Pål Hansen.

Elmhurst Ballet Company in Wayne McGregor’s ‘Entity’ excerpt. Photography Andy Ross.