Full Ballet-experience afternoon (Royal Opera House, 10.06.2022)

What a fantastic ballet afternoon we have had at the Royal Opera House today!

First, we saw four ballet excerpts, performed by the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, and then we had the opportunity to dance with Royal Ballet's former Soloist Laura McCulloch and learn some little pieces from one of the Royal Ballet's signature ballet The Sleeping beauty.

The American Ballet Theatre Company (ABT Company) is currently performing at the Royal Opera House (Linburry Theatre) as part of the Royal Opera House’s Next Generation Festival. The main point of the festival is to present new and emerging junior dancing companies as well as new, contemporary choreographers and bring awareness of great stylistic variety in ballet - and that was exactly what we could see this afternoon. The ABT Company were proudly presenting their choreographic heritage and the range of repertory they are curating as a company. Starting with Twyla Tharp’s Known by Heart pas de deux, they set up a very high standard and expectations, which they kept until the very end. They continued with a beautiful classical piece Gran pas Classique from Victor Gsovsky and afterwards with the ballet from Jessica Lang Children’s Songs Dance. The final piece they performed was a soulful solo dance called Lora, choreographed by Yannick Lebrun.

The second part of today's afternoon was all about dancing with the Royal Ballet. If you fancy catching up with your ballet skills and learning something new or just having fun and experiencing what the ballet dancers' days are like, this is the perfect event to attend. It was a great experience for everyone - whether somebody had an experience in ballet dancing or not, we all learnt something new and enjoyed our dancing very much. The class was led by Laura McCulloch and accompanied by the pianist Niamh Beddy. It was well-paced and constructed: we started with the ballet class and then moved on to learn little excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty (which will be in the Royal Ballet's repertory in the upcoming autumn season).