What a fantastic term we have had here at Danscentre! There have been many performance opportunities including Christmas events, exams and parent watching, along with exciting DC alumni news and more which you can check out below:
Mindfulness Week
This term for DC Feature Week, we focused on Mindfulness by using the classes to create a focus on Positive Mental Attitude and mental wellbeing. Alongside this, we gave students the opportunity to design and create their own poster as there are lots of inspirational quotes on being positive and working hard when things may be a bit challenging. Classes took part in various activities throughout the week including group discussions, yoga/meditation sessions, tasks and games to explore their feelings and how to adopt a growth mindset. Overall, it was a wonderful week and great to have a focus on something that is so important for us all to take into our daily lives. Check out the slideshow of pictures below to see what they got up to:
Royal Ballet School: ATAP
DC held a landmark moment recently with the first ever Royal Ballet School ATAP assessments taking place here at the studios. Danscentre is privileged to be trialling the new Affiliate Training and Assessment Programme and our first Level 2 and 3 students sat their exams on Friday 9 December. The first world wide!
ATAP is a new innovative model that challenges current programmes and provides a new focus for dance training - the programme provides training, not only in technique, but creative practice, choreography and repertoire. The Royal Ballet School ATAP is only available to teachers who pass a rigorous selection process, demonstrating the values and ethos aligned with The Royal Ballet School. Huge congratulations to all students and their teachers Jillian Louis, Lorna Scott and Michelle Whyte who are all pioneers in their own right! Over the next few years, ATAP will be gradually introduced throughout the whole of Danscentre ensuring all students are given this fantastic opportunity to truly experience our art form as a whole.
RAD Exam Success
This term our Intermediate Foundation and Advanced 1 students headed down to Stirling to sit their RAD Vocational exams. This was a special day for the students as it was the first face to face exam session with an examiner since 2019! We would like to send a congratulations to all students on their fantastic results and for all the hard work they put into in the lead up to the day!
Our Grade 7 students recently sat their RAD Ballet Ballet exams at Danscentre. All of us at DC would like to send the students a huge well done on their beautiful performances and for all the extra time, effort and determination that they have put in since the beginning of the academic year. Fantastic work!
Dance Leadership
Huge congratulations to our 14 students who successfully passed their Dance Leadership SCQF Level 4 Qualification. Well done for all on your hard work, effort, preparation and organisation throughout - we are very proud.
Christmas Light Up Parade
Our Coaching A group had the exciting opportunity this term to take part in the Aberdeen Christmas Light Switch-on Parade! The students put on a fantastic performance as they made their way down Union Street and had a brilliant time in doing so. Well done to all involved.
Evening Express Christmas Concert
DC Advanced 2 Modern students also put on a stellar Christmas performance at the Evening Express Christmas Concert at the Aberdeen P&J Live on Sunday 11 December. They all had so much fun and performed beautifully, giving the audience lots of Christmas sparkle for the
festive season!
Destinations 2023
We are delighted to announce that Danscentre's choreography 'Fix You' has been selected from hundreds of entries to part of the Y Dance Destinations performance which takes place at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness on Saturday 18 February. This is a showcase of the best youth dance companies from across Scotland with up to 14 groups performing as well as the National Youth Dance Company of Scotland! We can't wait for the rehearsals and preparation to begin for this exciting opportunity.
Workshops
DC Alumni Kim Francey came into DC earlier this term to give our students a fantastic
Contemporary workshop. All of the students had a wonderful time experimenting new ways of movement and lifting partners and it was great to have Kim back in the DC studios sharing her expertise and knowledge - many thanks Kim
Parent Watching
Danscentre and our venues held our first parent watching sessions since December 2019 this month! Due to the pandemic, we have not been able to open our doors and invite parents in to watch their children in a dance class environment for a number of years. It was a wonderful experience for all parents to have an insight into what their children have been working on and how much they have progressed since the beginning of the academic year. See below this brilliant video clip from our Saturday Grade 2 Modern class at DC where parents were encouraged to get up and dance with their children in the studio!
DC Alumni and Student News
Harris Beattie
Huge congratulations to DC Alumni Harris Beattie on his debut performance as the Prince in Northern Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker with partner Clara, Rachael Gillespie. DC teachers Karen Berry and Michelle Whyte were delighted to head down to watch his first performance at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking! All at DC are very proud of Harris’ accomplishments and a few of our staff and students were delighted to have the opportunity to travel down to Leeds earlier this week to watch Harris perform the role.
Rosie Mackley
We are thrilled to congratulate DC Alumni, Rosie Mackley, on being selected as a Beyond Ballet Choreographer with National Youth Ballet for this season! Rosie will be working with the NYB Residential Performance Company and creating work with the dancers and all of us at DC are so excited to see her new creations. Rosie trained at the Royal Ballet Conservatoire of Scotland, where she enjoyed collaborating with other artistic disciplines and had the exciting opportunity to work and tour with Scottish Ballet. Since graduating in 2020, Rosie has been working freelance in teaching, education, performance, choreography and production. Congratulations Rosie!
Pantomime 2022 News
We want to wish our alumni and current students who are taking part in Panto and other Christmas shows a huge good luck for their remaining performances this season! DC Alumni Beth Nicholson and Murray Williams kicked off their performances in Peter Pan at HMT Aberdeen. It's great to see two of our past pupils performing together in the same production. Keep a look out for them if you're heading to the show with Beth playing the part of 'Wendy' and Murray in the ensemble!
Cara Sutherland is playing the main title role of 'Dick Whittington' in Inverurie’s panto production of Dick Whittington!
DC students Libby, Chloe, Hannah and Charlotte will be performing at the P&J Live in Elf: The Musical as part of the choir. This will be a huge performance for these young people as they will be singing in front of 8000 people!
Caitlin, Callie and Poppy are currently performing as part of the chorus in Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the Tivoli Theatre in Aberdeen!
All of us here at Danscentre wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope you have a lovely break and we will see you in 2023! Please see holiday dates below along with a Dance and Musical Theatre Christmas TV Schedule to keep you all inspired and entertained over the festive period:
Term ends Wednesday 21 December 2022
Winter Holiday begins on Thursday 22 December 2022 to Saturday 7 January 2023 inclusive.
Term starts on Monday 9 January 2023
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