KNT Danceworks Summer Intensives

I have already mentioned KNT Danceworks' Adult Summer Intensives in More good news from Manchester 14 April 2015 and KNT Danceworks Adult Summer Intensives 7 May 2015. Yesterday Karen Sant published the curricula vitarum of the course teachers and their credentials are impressive.

Here is what she wrote about Jane Tucker:

"Born in West Yorkshire, Jane undertook her early training with the Northern Dance Centre and completed it at Central School of Ballet and Northern Ballet School where she performed and toured with Manchester City Ballet.
Jane began her professional career with Hong Kong Ballet in 1994, touring extensively through Asia, north America and Canada.She returned to her roots joining Northern Ballet Theatre in 1999 and enjoyed three years touring around the UK and China.Throughout her dancing career Jane has performed in most of the classics and premièred in many new works: The Last Emperor, A Streetcar Named Desire and Madam Butterfly to name a few.
Jane gained Distinction for the Professional Dancers Teaching Diploma at the RAD, London in 2002 and has accumulated extensive teaching experience to date.Since graduating from the RAD Jane has toured Australia undertaking workshops and classes in companies and vocational colleges including the Western Academy for Performing Arts. Within the UK Jane has taught for various schools - Northern Ballet School, Elmhurst, NSCD, SLP college and Theatreworks. She helped produce sleeping Beauty for the Liverpool Proscenium Youth Ballet Company, and provided classical training for contemporary companies Darkin Ensemble and Diversity Dance. She has also coached boys for the West End production of Billy Elliot."

Pausing there,  Jane taught one of the vacation classes at Northern Ballet last year. It was hard work but I enjoyed it very much. I should add that Manchester City Ballet is still going strong and that they performed The Nutcracker delightfully last year (see Alchemy 13 Dec 2014). Jane will teach both the beginners' and the advanced ballet courses. The beginners will be based on Swan Lake and the advanced on Giselle.

Jazz will be taken by Dane Quixall and contemporary by Gavin Persand.  Karen warns that the places are filling up. If you want to take part you should contact her through her Facebook page and ask for an application form. You will be asked for a £50 deposit and the balance must be paid not less than 4 weeks before the start of the course.

I am in a quandary. I love to dance and I know that I would appreciate Swan Lake so much more when I see it on stage if I have actually danced some of it myself - but I have come to ballet very late in life. While I can just about struggle through Fiona Noonan's 90 minute mixed age and mixed ability class at Huddersfield I am not sure that I can keep up with the agile young people who danced so well in Move It last month (see Didn't They Do Well 27 May 2015). My balance is not as good as it was last year and I struggle to stay on demi-pointe for more than a micro-second these days. On the other hand, maybe I should go for it while I can still dance at all.