Strong cast

Bruce Sansom has been director of The Central School of Ballet for just over two years. Behind that appointment lies a successful career as a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet. He was known as a very lyrical dancer with a classical purity of line, and has been compared with Anthony Dowell. Before that there were eight years of training at the Royal Ballet School.

I wondered how life at Central compares with life at Britain's foremost, and probably most formal, school of dance.

"It's a long time since I was there, but the main difference is that here it's a three-year programme for 16-year-olds and upwards, so we don't know them before they join us.

"At the Royal Ballet School students can do the whole of their training from childhood right up to joining a company. A big difference is that here we have literally one-on-one communication with the students; my office door is always open, and everybody's on first-name terms. We don't have the "sir" or "madam" type of approach, and I'm always known as Bruce."

The school has been based in Clerkenwell for all of its 25 years, but is now campaigning for a state-of-the-art home on the South Bank. It has around a hundred students - about 35 in each of the three years - and it prides itself on developing dancers as individuals.

Founded by Christopher Gable and Ann Stannard, Central is the only classical ballet school to offer its students a BA (Hons) degree in Professional Dance and Performance. In addition to a team of excellent teachers, the school has a list of renowned artistic advisers: Mark Baldwin, of Rambert, David Nixon, of Northern Ballet Theatre, Ashley Page, of Scottish Ballet, and Matthew Bourne, of New Adventures. But getting a place isn't easy.

"We audition everybody who applies with the required basic qualifications, around 300, out of which we take one year's group of about 35. We have to ask can we take this raw talent and in three years turn it into a professional dancer who will be able to go out and find a job?'"

It certainly works; over the past two years dancers from the school have joined Northern Ballet Theatre, Henri Oguike, New Adventures, Ballet Basel, Scottish Ballet and English National Ballet, to name just a few.

In this year's tour the young dancers will be presenting a dozen short works, though, obviously, not all on each occasion, although I've certainly seen as many as seven or eight pieces in the past. I asked Bruce how they choose works that will show around 30 dancers to best advantage.

"Bill Glassman, the artistic director of Ballet Central, Sara Matthews contemporary dance teacher and I will sit down and talk about what we want to see. The range of work is always the same: classical ballet favourites, new neo-classical works, contemporary dance and jazz.

"We look at the students in their second year, with a view to the following year's tour, and say: Where are the strengths in certain areas? What do we think would suit them?'.

"So it's a little bit of what we would like to see, and a bigger bit of what we think the students would benefit most from. But it's also to challenge them. It's not just to get them out there so an audience goes wow'. It's so they learn and develop across the year."

Among the pieces being danced this year is the Bluebird pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty, a fiendishly demanding duet which implies that they must have some technically very accomplished dancers.

"It's not on every evening. We move the works around a little bit, but we have a couple of casts who are strong enough to do it. But the interesting thing is that not everybody in the company will be able to do Bluebird, so you have to look carefully when you're deciding what to put on.

"It's rare for us to do something as high level as Bluebird, but if you've got it, I think it's worth pushing those who can do it. The thing is to make sure that everybody is challenged.

"Among the other highlights will be Capriol Suite by Christopher Hampson, which I think is a little gem. He's crafted it on the students and it's a very mature work and would grace any company. Sarah Matthews's contemporary work Silver Light on Water is a piece with wonderful rhythms and constructions, which she's made on the students over the whole of their second year.

"Also there's the double duet by David Nixon, artistic director of Northern Ballet Theatre, again a specially created piece. It's called Steps to Bach, and it's very Balanchine-esque and has that simplicity which will look good on the Chipping Norton stage".

Ballet Central is at The Theatre, Chipping Norton, next Friday and Saturday, May 16 and 17 - box office 01608 642350 - and at the Unicorn Theatre, London, on July 17-19.