Ballet star finds his feet

by Rob Bates
Wentworth Courier
Photograph by Alan Price
November 16, 2009

 

Hal Chrichton-Standish may be the only male ballet dancer at Woollahra Primary School but the talented youngster said that wasn’t as tough as most people assume. “When you think about how people would react to seeing a boy doing ballet, you would normally think that they would tease me but they don’t. So that’s really good,” Hal said.

Hal, 11, was recently offered a place at the Australian Ballet School under its International Training Program. Having trained at Alegria Dance Studios in Woolloomooloo since he was four, Hal was picked from thousands of youngsters from Australia and abroad who auditioned.

“It all started when I watched a production of the Nutcracker with my mum when I was about three,” he said. “I think it was the fluidity of it all that I really liked. It’s just really grand.”

The Nutcracker is still his favourite production and in 2007 he danced with the Australian Ballet in the Royal Birmingham’s production of the piece at Sydney Opera House.

Hal’s mum, Kim Chrichton, said she had been taken completely by surprise when her son asked to enrol in ballet classes, but she couldn’t be more proud of him. “He was just blown away when he watched his first performance,” Ms Chrichton said. “He knelt for the entire thing because they didn’t have a booster seat and wouldn’t stop dancing around after seeing it.”

Hal is in the Department of Education State Dance Junior Ensemble, Drama Primary Ensemble and the Junior Singers and has been offered a place at a performing arts high school.

 

© 2009 News Community Media

Secret ballet lessons made Billy the kid a star

Clare Morgan Arts editor
Sydney Morning Herald
Photo: Angela Wylie
November 9, 2009

 

 

It was a case of art imitating life for Dayton Tavares, a schoolboy about to take a star role in Billy Elliot the Musical on Broadway.

Dayton, 13, of Penrith, left for New York last week with his mother Sharon to begin rehearsals before his debut next month.

But in an echo of the musical – in which Billy takes ballet classes instead of the boxing lessons demanded by his coal miner father – Dayton spent six months learning ballet before spilling the beans to his father, Elvis. Kylie Vassallo, Dayton’s dance teacher at Studio 11, Penrith, said he came to a hip-hop class when he was nine after being persuaded by his sisters, Aeysha and Tenille.

Straight away, Ms Vassallo saw her new student had talent and suggested he take up dance. ”He had so much ability, which was obvious right away. He was doing soccer at the time but he fell in love with dance. I suggested he take up jazz and tap, but his father didn’t want him to do ballet. We snuck him into ballet class behind his father’s back and he did it for six months before his dad found out. Dayton was winning competitions after only six months, so his father could see there was something there,” Ms Vassallo said.

Dayton joined the Sydney production of Billy Elliot halfway through its run and starred on the opening night in Melbourne earlier this year. His proud father spent much of that performance in tears.

The youngster could not believe he had scored a role in the Broadway production, which won 10 Tony Awards this year. ”I had my last show in Melbourne and I thought that was it for Billy and then all of a sudden we got this big call saying, ‘We want you to go to New York,’ and it all just went from there,” he said.

He was ”a bit nervous” but was sure he would be fine for the demanding role.

Dayton is one of two new faces for the part, a 14-year-old from Canada also getting the call. Because of the role’s physical demands, with Billy on stage for most of the performance, four boys play him during a season.

Ms Vassallo said she had a very close relationship with Dayton – another echo of the Billy Elliot story, in which Billy forms a bond with his teacher. ”Dayton and I have a rare bond. I have closeness with all my students but with him, I don’t know – it’s just a respect that goes both ways.”

So much so that she has booked her flight to see him perform in January. ”I’m so excited. I really can’t believe it.”

 

Copyright 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

Boys at the barre: Peabody adds new young dancers

By Greg Rienzi
The John Hopkins Gazette
November 2, 2009

 

 

 

Producing Peadody Dance’s end-of-season student performances requires creative planning when it comes to filling boys’ roles, says Carol Bartlett, artistic director of Peabody Dance.

The Peabody Institute is not alone. The Baltimore area, Bartlett says, has produced glaringly few male dance students in recent years. “There is a big void in male student enrollment in local training programs,” Bart­lett says, “and we figured that we needed to create a new incentive for local boys to study ballet.”

In an effort to encourage boys to pursue dance and the arts, Peabody Dance approached the Estelle Dennis Trust Fund this past spring to support the launching of a scholarship program that allows boys ages 9 to 15 to study at the Preparatory one day a week. The Estelle Dennis Dance Scholarship Program for Boys, which debuted in September, is open to those who live in Baltimore City or County.

In its efforts to reach out to the dance community, Peabody Dance offers master classes and teachers’ seminars on an annual basis. About a dozen of these boys will participate in Peabody’s ninth annual Day of Master Classes and Ballet Teachers’ Seminar from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8, in the dance studios of the Peabody Preparatory’s Mount Vernon campus. This year’s seminar includes a new session called Training the Male Student.

The new scholarship program draws inspiration from the 2000 movie Billy Elliot, which was later turned into a Tony Award–winning musical. Billy Elliot is the story of an 11-year-old boy from a working-class British family who discovers a passion for dance. On his way to boxing lessons, Billy stumbles upon a ballet class that he later secretly joins. Under the guidance of his teacher, Billy’s raw talent takes flight. Bartlett says that the program similarly wants to awaken talents in these Baltimore boys.

Students selected to participate receive full tuition and free dancing shoes to attend Saturday classes during Peabody Dance’s 32-week fall/spring season.

The program focuses on ballet, recognized as the building block for all theatrical dance forms. Participants are also introduced to other forms of dance, such as contemporary and hip-hop. In addition to classes, the boys attend dance performances and visit with professional dancers, both active and retired.

The Peabody program builds upon the Estelle Dennis Dance Scholarship, established in 2005 with the intent of continuing the work and legacy of the local dance legend. The scholarship is awarded to an advanced male ballet student who resides in the mid-Atlantic region and is preparing for a career with a major ballet company. Peabody hosts the annual auditions.

A leader in the contemporary American dance scene, Estelle Dennis dedicated her life and career to creating training and performance opportunities for young dancers in both the amateur and professional arenas. In 1934, the Roland Park native and former Denishawn dancer opened her Dance Theatre in a converted carriage house at 100 E. Monument St. in Baltimore. The Estelle Dennis Dance Group blended modern dance and ballet choreography with ethnic music and dance traditions, creating an entirely new American style. Dennis remained active at the Dance Theatre until 1986. She died in 1996 at the age of 87.

This past April, Bartlett, artistic adviser Barbara Weisberger and others at Peabody approached those overseeing the Estelle Dennis Trust Fund to support an effort to establish a dance program for boys at Peabody. The response was enthusiastic.

Peabody hired former Pennsylvania Ballet dancer Meredith Rainey to teach the students, along with Peabody faculty member Tim Rinko-Gay.

To help recruit the boys, Peabody reached out to leaders at Baltimore City and County public schools and at various cultural organizations, including the Heritage Theater Artists and the Arena Players Youth Theater.

Peabody held a marathon set of auditions on May 18 at Roland Park Elementary and Middle School, Mount Royal School and Peabody. The sessions drew nearly 60 applicants. Twenty-four were selected.

“The response was magnificent and a real energy booster to the Peabody team,” Bart­lett says. “I don’t think Barbara and I will ever forget that day of effervescent human response. We wanted to take them all, and it was as if they could not get enough of the opportunity to move. It truly was a testimony to the obvious need out here for a much more driven focus on dance training.”

Weisberger, founding artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet, says that the auditions were a revelation. “[The boys] were so joyous and excited,” Weisberger says. “Some of them could hardly do some of the steps and positions, but they laughed and enjoyed it. Then we had them do their own thing, and they were marvelous. You could just see the raw talent that wanted to come to the surface.”

Bartlett says that in addition to designing and implementing the program, Peabody seeks to nurture the boys and families on a one-to-one basis. “In offering this opportunity for city and county boys to study ballet, we realize that much more is at issue than merely asking them to step over to a classical art form that on the surface is not exactly relevant to their daily lives or culture,” she says. “The effort to make it relevant to them is equally, if not more, a challenge than the actual training.”

Bartlett and Weisberger are now in the process of writing a proposal seeking funding to extend the scholarship program. The plan is to add an intensive training program for the boys currently in the program, as well as to offer classes for new recruits and begin a class focused on boys ages 8 to 10.

“There is obviously a need to offer more,” she says. “It’s not enough to whet their appetites with one class per week. We need to keep their interest peaked and find ways to give context to serious dance training in their lives.”

Weisberger agrees that Peabody needs to build upon the early momentum. “For too long we have been faced with the loss of serious male students in all dance forms,” Weisberger says. “This program has caught on, and it’s nothing short of life giving.”

The next auditions will take place in late spring 2010.

 

Copyright © 2009 · The Johns Hopkins University

 

 

Tamworth boys enthusiastic about dance

Clare Morgan
The Sydney Morning Herald
October 29, 2009

THE day before Adrian Burnett turned up at the Owl and the Pussycat dance school in Tamworth, he received a photograph and a letter from a boy who could barely contain his excitement over the former Australian Ballet dancer taking their class.

”They were so enthusiastic, they absolutely rocked it out,” said Burnett, who led the class as part of the Dance The Dream competition, a joint venture between NAB and the Australian Ballet.

It seems that boys up Tamworth way love their dance, with the school’s principal, Kimberley Brazel, dedicating one day a week to a boys’ class, the Tomcats. Class member Jaydon Merrick, 10, had entered the competition without telling anyone, including Mrs Brazel.

Almost 800 ballet schools from around Australia entered, with 10 selected for workshops with a professional dancer from the Australian Ballet. Burnett thinks the program is invaluable in fostering interest in dance and ballet, especially in regional areas.

”You see programs to get children interested in sport but there aren’t so many of those things for the arts, and in particular dance,” he said. They might not be ballet dancers – in fact, most of them won’t be – but they’re the audiences of the future, which hopefully gets them into other artforms.”

He enjoyed the chance to speak to parents, who often didn’t know what they were supposed to do to encourage their children. ”Often the fathers ask me questions, and it’s great to put them at ease. My father didn’t know what was going on either,” he said. ”There’s lots of focus on dance, thanks to So You Think You Can Dance, but not so much on classical ballet. In fact, I think there’s lots of misconceptions about ballet.”

Yesterday Burnett took a class from the Caper School of Performing Arts, in Bella Vista. ”I saw a lot of talent that we’ll see more of in the future,” he said.

Copyright © 2009 Sydney Morning Herald

Boys in Ballet: Dancers Break Stereotypes

By Carrina Stanton
For The Chronicle
Photographs by Holly Pederson
and Dan Schreiber
October 26, 2009
[Edited]
 

   Mick Gunter leads a group of boys in a series of push-ups. Next, they lay on their backs and try to lift and hold their legs about three inches off the ground. Their muscles start to quiver with the next exercise, where they balance with their bodies in the shape of a V with only their bottoms on the ground.

    One might think they were getting ready for some sort of sport or martial art. In reality, they’re warming up to dance ballet.

    “Most people think ballet is a sissy kind of sport but they’re completely wrong,” said Gunter, who recently opened Centralia Ballet Academy with his wife, Nancy.

    When the Gunters opened the ballet academy in downtown Centralia, Gunter said he knew he wanted an all-male class to be part of his curriculum from the beginning. In growing the next generation of dancers, Gunter said one of the hardest parts about getting males to dance ballet is breaking stereotypes. Boys are typically not encouraged to take ballet. In fact, Gunter did not start dancing himself until 1998, though it interested him as a child.

    But Gunter said ballet can have various benefits for males so he offers a class that stresses basic ballet while being geared toward things boys like. In one class, he explained how the word plié looks very much like the word “plier,” a tool that opens and closes like the move. He encouraged his class to remember the move Rond de Jambe as being like running your foot around the bases in baseball. His all-male class also dances to music from Super Mario Brothers and James Bond.

 

 

    “I try to make dance something they can relate to by using things they’re familiar with,” Gunter said. “Other classes are usually lots of girls and sometimes being the only boy can be intimidating. We’re trying to create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable.”

    Most people think of ballet as being a female dance form, full of tights and tutus. But the first ballet performances can be traced to the Italian and French royal courts of the 1400s, where females were not permitted to take part in the theater arts. Dancers were male, including men wearing masks in female parts, until about 1680. From then both sexes were equally praised in the art form until about the 19th Century when male dancing began to decline with the appearance of romantic ballet, in which women excelled.

    Male dancers began to reemerge in the 20th Century but they didn’t gain respect as contributors to the art until well into the 1960s when Russian dancers such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov began to emerge and choreographers began to write pieces for all-male casts. Tanner Calder, 18, of Napavine, who has been dancing at Southwest Washington Dance Center in Chehalis for three years, said watching videos of some of these great male dancers really showed him how physical and athletic ballet really [is].

    “Watch footage of them dancing and you’ll understand completely what they did for ballet. They created male ballet,” Calder said.

    Centralia Ballet Academy has a total of six male students. The Southwest Washington Dance Center has five male dancers this year. Calder said just a couple years ago he was the only male dancer at the Chehalis studio and for some unknown reason their ranks have steadily grown. He said he’s happy for the company, both from a performance standpoint and also that as the number of male dancers grow, so may the public perception of them. Calder, who actually gave up a spot on the football team to dedicate his time to dance, said he still encounters a great deal of ignorance about male dancers.

    Fellow dancer Vernon Keech, 27, Chehalis, who danced as a teenager then returned to the art form last year, said he missed the creative outlet and physical strength dance gave him. But Keech admitted that when he decided to return to ballet, he felt a lot of pressure from his male friends who would take verbal jabs at him whenever he mentioned dancing. Now, he said he tries to educate those around him about just how strong male dancers must be.

    “They say, ‘What do you do?’ and I say ‘I dance’ and they give me this, ‘Oh really?’ and I say, ‘Yeah, it’s really cool,’ and then I expound on the really cool parts about it,” Keech said. “It’s physically challenging. It requires mental discipline and teamwork. It’s like being in an organized sport and it’s just as hard.”

    Soccer player Austin Hawkins groaned Saturday during his first male ballet class at Centralia Ballet Academy when Gunter showed the class some of the stretches. The 12-year-old from Chehalis said he was curious to try the art form and was surprised at how hard it was. “It was pretty difficult because I’d never done it before,” Hawkins said after the hour-long workout. “I’ll definitely be back.”

    Gunter said ballet is not just for those who want to dance. He recommends dance to any athlete or martial artist to improve their balance, agility and strength. He pointed out that Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer Lynn Swann began dancing at the age of 8 and never stopped. The top highest vertical leaps recorded by the National Basketball Association range from 28 inches to a little less then 6 feet. Talented male ballet dancers can leap 4 to 5 feet high with no running start. On good days, Baryshnikov could leap six feet.

    Daniel Holloway, 13, of Olympia, who has been doing ballet for four years and recently started taking classes at Centralia Ballet Academy, said most of his friends are supportive of his involvement in ballet. For those who aren’t, he said ballet has given him the ability to prove male dancers are not wimps. “I only had one kid who thought ballet was just for girls, but I beat him in wrestling so he gave that up,” Holloway said with a grin.

    In many respects, ballet is much like any other sport, Keech said. You have to learn to work together, especially when it comes to partnering with a female dancer. He said lifting a 100-plus pound dancer is not as easy as it looks. Lifts are a 50/50 relationship, with the male dancer lifting at just the right moment and the female learning to hold her core straight and in just the right position to help her partner. Keech said it is something that has to be learned. You can’t just walk onto a stage and lift a partner or someone will get hurt. One exercise dancers at Southwest Washington Dance Center use to strengthen their muscles is lifting the 5-gallon water cooler jugs. The dancers place their hands on either side of the 40-pound jug, much like placing their hands on the waist of a partner. Then they lift the jug up, down and to either side. “We have to know how to support ourselves and how to position ourselves,” Keech explained.

    Besides striving for credit for the difficulty of their sports, local male dancers said more than anything they want to find a way for ballet to have a place among athletes. Gunter said he’s not trying to lure any athletes away from sports but rather encouraging them to take his class as a way to condition for their chosen activities. As someone who has seen both the physical act of dancing and performance change his life, Gunter said he simply wants to share the experience with more males.

    “We want to make it so that you can still be a guy and do ballet,” Gunter said. “You can still like sports and go to ballet as well.”

 

Copyright © 2009 The Chronicle

Perth’s dancers among the top in Britain

Alison Lowson
Perthshire Advertiser
Oct 2 2009

 

 PERTH is fast gaining a reputation as the dance capital of Scotland. The latest in a long line of talent finely honed by Julie Young Dance Studios is making the grade at the top level in UK ballet. The dedicated dance and performing arts school operator admitted: “The success of the current crop of local talent is unprecedented.”

Aiden O’Brien (11) has caught the eye of the Royal Ballet School. As one of just 12 boys selected from more than 1000 worldwide hopefuls who auditioned, Aiden has begun training at the famous school, chasing a dream of becoming the next Carlos Acosta.

He has been a junior associate with the Royal Ballet for the last two years and has been dancing since he was six.

Aiden joins former pupil Stephanie Rae, who is now in her fourth year with the Royal Ballet, having already savoured the Royal Opera House atmosphere in their production of ‘Nutcracker’.

There are just four Scots at the Royal Ballet and two emerged from the Julie Young school.

Meanwhile, Michaela Rondelli (16), a former Perth Grammar School pupil, and 17-year-old former St Columba’s High pupil Adele Duffy, have enjoyed a successful year.

Michaela, who added the senior Scottish ballet and senior Scottish Modern titles to her name in 2009 enjoyed successful auditions at top UK colleges. She has decided to embark on a three-year BA hons course in theatre dance at the London Studio Centre.

Adele has performed in various Perth Theatre productions. No stranger to the London dance circuit, she has chosen to attend performers college on a full-time professional dancer’s course.

In the younger age bracket, Kirsty Michie, from Coupar Angus, and Jodi Milne of Kirriemuir – both 11 – successfully auditioned for the Dance School of Scotland, part of Knightswood Secondary School in Glasgow.

With input from Michael Ellacott and Amanda Beveridge, the popular Perth dance school has widened its net to nurture dance, music and acting talent under the umbrella of the Julie Young School of Performing Arts.

Julie takes pride in the progress made by former pupils who are reaching for the heights in their chosen professions. “Shaun Kelly is in his final year with the English National Ballet School and will be performing in their Christmas production of ‘The Nutcracker’. Along with others, they have all played key roles in a wide variety of charitable and community entertainment.

Julie observed: “The pupils enhance the cultural life of the city and with greater emphasis on musical theatre Michael and Amanda are making the most of the raw talent we have in Perth.”

 

© 2009 Scottish & Universal Newspapers

Perry Scott is poised for big future

by KATE CRAWFORD
The Moseman Daily
Photograph by Dave Swift
August 27, 2009

 

 

STEP aside Billy Elliot, here come’s Seaforth dance student Perry Scott.  The 15-year-old has made one of the most spectacular leaps into the elite world of ballet by being accepted into the prestigious Australian Ballet School just seven months after deciding to learn to dance.

Perry was not inspired by the Billy Elliot story but by the film Strictly Ballroom. He saw the film with his mum, thought he’d like to learn to dance and began weekly lessons at Mosman Dance Academy.

“As soon as he walked in, I knew,” academy principal Jasmin Bobyk said. “Perry is a born dancer with the perfect physique for ballet.”

Bobyk said after Perry completed one term of weekly dance lessons in tap and classical ballet, she encouraged him to concentrate on ballet.

Perry had only done another three terms of three lessons a week when he successfully took part in an audition class in June for the Australian Ballet School though only 14.

Hundreds of aspiring young ballet dancers from across Australia, most of whom have undertaken years of lessons, audition each year for the school.

Perry said he was shocked when he was accepted. “The whole family was giddy and mum was crying,” he said.

Perry will move to Melbourne in January to attend the four-year course, which also includes regular academic studies.

Perry comes from a talented family. His mum is Lyndall Brasier, a teacher at Mosman High School, and his father Craig is head of jazz at the Conservatorium of Music. His older brother Joel is training to be an opera singer and sister Lucy is studying for a double degree in fine arts.

 

© 2009 News Community Media

Young ballet dancer’s chance on the big stage

AMY GRAY
EDP24
23/09/2009

 

A young ballet dancer from Norfolk will perform alongside ballet’s biggest stars at the Royal Opera House this winter – after less than two years of dancing lessons.

While most young dancers can only dream of being a ballet dancer on the world’s stage, 10-year-old Tyler Carey was picked from dozens of young hopefuls to join the ballet elite in a production of The Sleeping Beauty.

Last year, Tyler was made a Junior Associate of the prestigious Royal Ballet School after just one year of lessons.

He was invited to London to audition for a part in The Sleeping Beauty last week and later this year will play a king’s page.

“I watched all these shows and wanted to be in them so I started to do some jazz and tap, and then ballet,” said Tyler, from West Winch, near King’s Lynn. You have to be quite strong to be a ballet dancer and you have to jump high.”

Tyler, a pupil at Middleton VC Primary School, said rehearsals with the Royal Ballet would be “really, really technical” and he was currently learning to do the splits.

He added that one of his favourite dances to perform was a Blues Brothers routine with his twin brother, Finn, who goes to jazz and tap lessons.

Penny Cooke, who teaches Tyler at Watlington School of Dancing, said it was the first time that one of her pupils had appeared at the Royal Opera House. “To be able to have this opportunity to be on the Royal Opera House stage at his age and mix with the stars of the company is brilliant. It is rare and he does have a talent. He’s responding very well to the extra teaching and making progress.”

As an associate, Tyler trains with the Royal Ballet School every fortnight at their studio in Covent Garden, as well as several lessons a week with Mrs Cooke.

Like the famous ballet dancer of film and literature, Billy Elliot, Tyler is the only boy in his ballet class.

Tyler gets lots of support from his parents and his mum Tracey Carey said she was proud of her son’s achievements. “He works very hard and sometimes, if there’s a weekend where there’s a party, Finn will go but Tyler knows he has to go down to London to train,” she said.

In January, Tyler will audition to keep his place as an associate of the Royal Ballet School and from there he could be accepted into White Lodge, a boarding school for young dancers.

Copyright © 2009 Archant Regional Ltd

 

Related article: Ballet dream comes true for Norfolk’s Billy Elliott

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