Talking to members of Ballet Central ahead of their Chipping Norton performance

Ballet Central consists of members of the graduating year of Central School of Ballet. The school was founded by Christopher Gable, who was for many years director and choreographer for Northern Ballet. The standard has always been completely professional, and in order to give all the cast a moment in which to shine, they usually bring six of seven short pieces, designed to show off the versatility of these talented students. Heidi Hall is now a director of Ballet Central, and it’s also where she learned to dance, so after a long career as a dancer in many companies, she has come full circle. I asked her what she gained from her time in Ballet Central.

“It opened my eyes to a lot of things, but I think the reputation of the school also helped me in gaining employment. We are renowned for producing dancers who want to know how everything works in the theatre, so I appreciated learning about stage management, the costumes, the lighting. That’s what Artistic Directors are looking for in a Central dancer. If in an audition it comes down to two people who are equally talented, the Central dancer will have an advantage because they already know how to behave in a theatre environment.”

None of the other leading vocational dance schools send their graduates on an experience-gaining tour like this.

“I think at the time Christopher Gable started it thirty years ago, it was very visionary, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a lot of work, and costs a lot of money. But we feel very passionate about it, and I think that the variety of the work that we do is also testament to the training that the dancers get. They are not just classical dancers, they can also do contemporary dance and jazz, so they’re very versatile”

. Young dancers are very keen to get into Central because of the training. Each year the school auditions about five hundred students for just thirty places. I wondered how successful all this has been in getting them jobs when they leave.

“We pride ourselves that we are signposting them to a career that is best for them, rather than just producing a dancer who looks just the same as everybody else. We have dancers currently in Rambert, Scottish Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Ballet Black and Phoenix Dance Company. We also have dancers in Phantom of the Opera and Billy Elliot in the West End, and with Matthew Bourne.”

Ruaidhri Maguire, ( pronounced Rory, in case you’re wondering ), is one of the dancers in this year’s tour. I asked him what he is gaining from the experience.

“Life on the road is very different from life in the studio, where you always have the space to practise everything, and not such a tight schedule. And we do everything; we arrive at the theatre at 8.45 in the morning and do the stage get- in, we lay the floor, we also do the lighting get-in, which I’m part of, which means we set up the booms and the side lights, ready for the technical staff to take over for the show. Personally I’ve appreciated the technical staff a lot more, and often they get overlooked. I feel with that training I will be able to deal better with technicians wherever I go. Going on tour is very tiring, physically and mentally, because each space is different everywhere we go. Some theatres are huge, some are tiny, some have a raked stage, some don’t, and you have to use your brain to keep that choreography still looking good. We want to give the same performance in a small theatre as we would for the audience in a big one.”

Backstage there’s sometimes pandemonium, with so many different works, so many different costumes, and thirty dancers often crammed into very limited dressing-room space.

“I once had a quick change from a really small uniform into a full dress suit with bow tie, sash, tails and everything. I was in the wings, and I was worried about being seen by the audience. There were people walking past me, and I couldn’t get into my trousers, but you just have to believe that the thing will work”.

Rory is first and foremost a classical dancer, and he has just got a job with the Milwaukee Ballet in the United States. This is a classy company, run for the past thirteen years by the British dancer and choreographer Michael Pink, who also helped Christopher Gable to set up Ballet Central. Pink creates dramatic story ballets – Dracula, Peter Pan, Romeo and Juliet, but he has also mounted the great classics - Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, so there will be many opportunities for the young dancer to stretch his wings.

Ballet Central is at The Theatre, Chipping Norton, this Saturday.