KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 3

Marius Petipa

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Well it's over. We did our show. We have all had a stab at dancing four of the best known dances from Swan Lake. I feel a massive sense of achievement merely to have taken part in all the classes and rehearsals and the final performance even though I am conscious that much of the choreography was well beyond my physical strength and skill. I am enormously grateful to Jane Tucker for teaching this course and to Karen Sant for organizing it. I am also grateful to all my teachers for conducting me to the point where I could contemplate a workshop of this kind. Finally, I want to say a big thank you to all the other participants for making me feel so welcome notwithstanding my antiquity, awkwardness and lack of talent.

Our day started with warm up exercises on our pilates mats. Depressingly they included some that I could do perfectly well just a couple of years ago which were now quite beyond me. Sit-ups from a flat on the back position, for example. I could only achieve that by enormous exertion which was clearly not a good idea so I raised myself as much as I could and sank back with somewhat greater alacrity than anybody else. The exercise that I found particularly useful was for the feet. Just over a year ago my right foot started to give me trouble to the extent that I can no longer rise on it on demi. Jane showed is how to flex and stretch the toes. That really helped with some of the barre work later.

I felt very much at home in Jane's class for it started just like every class at Northern Ballet with a walk, skip and run. We did tendus at the barre, followed by pliés in second, first, fifth and fourth, then more tendus. glissés, ronds de jambe, cloches, grands battements and stretches. In the centre we did a port de bras, pirouettes of various kinds, chaînés and all types of jumps. A bit more difficult than the Over 55 improvers at Northern Ballet perhaps but still doable.

The last hour before lunch and the first hour after lunch were taken up with rehearsals. We did the Hungarian dance, Siegfried's solo, cygnets and the swans' entry.  There were sequences of each dance that I never mastered but the prince's dance was by far the most difficult for me.  It required assemblés, tours en l'air (which I had never tried before) and multiple pirouette turns which I have never managed in class. The swans' dance was the most satisfying to learn and execute.

The last event of the day was our show. We had been asked to bring white leotards, flesh coloured tights and a black skirt. I had ordered mine from Just Ballet in Essex. Those garments took their time to arrive because the rain had smudged the address. The Royal Mail in its wisdom had sent the package to Harrogate rather than Holmfirth. Happily I picked them up on the morning of the show. This was the first time I had worn ballet tights and I found them difficult to put on in the confined space of the ladies' shower cubicle. Nevertheless, I managed somehow.

As often happens the excitement of performing raised everybody's game - even mine - but it was over so quickly. I savoured every single second of the show.  Karen and Jane clapped us generously.  Jane asked us whether our expectations had been met. "Oh indeed they had" we replied. "They had been exceeded." Jane commended the progress that we had made in the three days of the workshop.

So was this workshop worth £200 and three days off work. Emphatically yes! I think the real benefit will be a heightened appreciation and understanding of the ballet when we next see Swan Lake on stage. In my case that will be Birmingham Royal Ballet's at Sadler's Wells. I shall be looking out for the changements and échappés of the cygnets and I will say to myself "I did that". I will share the pride of the noble Magyars in the Hungarian dance. My heart will leap with each of Siegried's tours en l'air. And I know what it is like to be a swan under a magician's spell. This experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.

KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 2

Author Marek Szczepanek
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This is only day 2 of the intensive but already I have learned a lot. A lot of choreography, of course: the cygnets' pas de quatre, the Hungarian dance, Siegfried's solo and the entry of the swans. I have also received some jolly good practical tips such as take a hot bath followed by a cold shower after strenuous physical exercise. I have learned a lot about myself and what I can still do at my age. But most of all I have learned a whole new respect for the dancer.

I have been exhausted by only two days of classes and rehearsals but members of a company have to do that sort of thing all the time and then dance in a matinee or evening performance or on some days both. To do that day in day out requires stamina, strength and determination. It is true that they are all much younger than me, that dancing is their vocation and that they have trained for it over many years but it is still gruelling stuff and I take my hat off to them.

Today I got to know some of students on this course a little better. Several of them had read this blog and we discussed some of the articles in it. I also got into conversation with Mark Hindle, one of the teachers at KNT, over lunch. We found out that we share a passion for Ballet Black and Ballet Cymru and are both fans of Sayaka Wright-Ichikawa and Krystal Lowe.

Tomorrow we are consolidating and refining what we have learned in order to give a performance at 15:45. Karen has very kindly allowed Gita to watch us so that she can review our show for Terpsichore. On Sunday night I was a bag of nerves quite convinced that I wouldn't make it through the first day. Well I have survived the first two days already and I think that tomorrow will be the best bit.

One of the reasons I didn't throw in the towel on Monday is that I was bucked up by an email from my clerk. The Chambers and Partners guides are to lawyers and law firms what the Michelin red guides are to restaurateurs. Just before I was due to go into class I learned that I was in it. Ballet takes a large part of the credit for that.  Five years ago I was devastated by the loss of my spouse to motor neuron disease and had more or less lost the will to live. About a month or so after my spouse's death I noticed a postcard on my gym noticeboard offering ballercise classes by a lady who had danced with Queensland Ballet. I took those classes and found that I enjoyed them. They made me exercise and gave me discipline. Ballercise led to ballet and eventually Northern Ballet's Over 55 class in Leeds. I made a lot of new acquaintances in that class and many more through the London Ballet Circle, Chelmsford Ballet, BalletcoForum and elsewhere.

On Thursday Jane Tucker will teach an advanced workshop based on Giselle.  Michelle, a member of my Over 55 class and one of the most prolific contributors to BalletcoForum, will be taking part. If it is only half as good as Swan Lake she is in for a treat.

KNT's Beginners' Adult Ballet Intensive - Swan Lake: Day 1

Swan Lake

Author Paata Vardanashvili

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Although I was very gung ho when I booked my place on KNT Danceworks beginners' adult ballet intensive summer school on 4 June my feet were chilling at an alarming rate last night as I contemplated the enormity of what I had committed to. I set out the timetable in "A Swan? Me a Swan? Ah! Go on!" 13 Aug 2015. Three days of warm-up sessions, classes and rehearsals and then a performance on the last day.

"Have you taken complete leave of your senses" asked wise I of frivolous Me. "You are 66 years old, way overweight, badly coordinated and one of the least competent students who ever clutched a barre."

Hard to argue with the truth. But I had paid my money. Booked three days off work. Told everybody I was going. Too late to back out now. So I wended my across the Pennines in low spirits feeling much as the condemned must have felt as he was trundled along to Tyburn.

My spirits rose when I actually arrived at The Dancehouse. I was welcomed by Karen with a smile and recognized more than a few familiar faces. We were led upstairs to one of the studios where we met our teacher. I know Jane Tucker from Northern Ballet and think the world of her.  She has a wonderful way of coaxing us to carry on even when we can go no further. "Not bad" she exclaims after a shambles of a turn. "How are you doing?" She smiles. "All right?" And so we are.

We started our day with a warm up on our pilates mats. Gentle stretches to soothing music. A few minutes break followed by a 90 minute class. Like all Northern Ballet teachers we started with a walk, then arm stretches, then a run, then a skip facing in. Then a skip facing out. We did the usual barre, port de bras, turns and jumps. We had our first rehearsal just before lunch in which we learned the cygnets' dance. After lunch we learned the Hungarian dance. Finally, we had a very thorough cool down on our mats. "Go and take a hot bath followed by a cold shower" advised Jane "And get a good meal inside you,"

Well, I feel knackered but not nearly as knackered as I had expected to be at the end of the first day. I did follow Jane's advice and while the cold shower was murder I have no more aches and pains than I would expect at the end of any class.  I must have seen scores of Swan Lakes over the years but this course has given me an understanding of two dances that I would never have gained otherwise in a month of Sundays.

I am just so glad I came.