Powerhouse Ballet - What comes next

Kirklees Leisure Centre

© 2018 Jane Elizabeth Lambert: all rights reserved

At about 3 pm today. a group of dancers will meet in the studio shown in the photograph above to begin a 90 minute class with Jane Tucker of Northern Ballet Academy. I have no idea how big that group will be. Some 20 people have registered for the class but several have had to drop out. On the other hand, I have received at least one intimation through twitter from a dancer who has not yet registered that she is looking forward to meeting everybody. All I would say is that if you want to come and have not yet registered is please let me know as soon as possible so that I can ask the staff at reception to let you in.

The class will take place at the Kirklees Leisure Centre at Spring Grove Street, Huddersfield, HD1 4BP which is just to the west of the Castlegate ring road. It is just down the hill from junction 24 on the M62 with oodles of onsite parking at 70p per hour and a short walk from the bus and railway stations for those who will use public transport.

There will be a short meeting after the class to decide whether we want to form a company and to elect a small steering committee to draw up a business plan and constitution. Several of the people who have had to drop out have stressed that they still want to form a company. Several others who can't be here today have said the same. We have even had messages of support from Mel Wong and David Hotchkiss in Hungary. I think we have enough support to plan for our next activity.

It is important to keep the momentum. Chelmsford Ballet holds company classes with a different teacher on the first Sunday of every month. Cara O'Shea, who once danced Princess Aurora for the the Chelmsford Ballet, gave her old company a very good class a few years ago. We need to do the same. Jane Tucker has very kindly agreed in principle to give us another class as have a number of other teachers.

As many of us have progressed from beginners to improvers and beyond without mastering all the basics and have acquired bad habits I have asked Karen Sant of KNT to arrange a day long ballet boot camp to iron some of these out (see Ballet Boot Camp Pilot 9 May 2018 Powerhouse Ballet). As it is likely to take a little more than a day for folks like me I have discussed the possibility of residential courses with Gillian Barton in Scotland and Terence Etheridge in Cornwall.

Chelmsford arranges all sorts of other events throughout the year such as workshops, an annual coach trip to London to see a show, a performance with the Brentwood Choral Society at Christmas and a children's workshop called "Let's make a ballet" in the Autumn. As workshops and summer schools require time off work I was thinking that we may as well hold them in places where we might well go on holiday such as Taynuilt and Truro. I was also thinking of inviting artistic directors of visiting companies, choreographers, dancers and musicians to dinner meetings where we talk to them over a glass of wine or coffee after a light supper. If I can persuade them to sit down with us, Christopher Marney, Yoko Ichino, Cira Robinson and Koen Kessels are high on my list. Finally, I hope we can persuade Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre and visiting companies to arrange special events with us where we can explore the choreography and maybe meet their dancers, creatives and technicians.

I emphasize that we need artists, craftsmen and women, designers, managers, musicians and technicians as well as dancers. If you would like to help us in any capacity even if you live outside the North, do get in touch.