Sunday 7 May 2017

More Good News from Wales: Swansea Students' Show

Swansea Grand Theatre
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Yesterday I mentioned that the Welsh composer Jack White who has written the scores of Cinderella and Stuck in the Mud for Ballet Cymru and has recently been commissioned to write a score for the National Dance Company of Wales has published a recording of Cinderella on his website and very reasonably invited the public to contribute what they can for licences to download and play his work. Today I bring more good news from the principality, My fellow adult ballet student, Sophia Komninou is taking part in a show at Swansea Grand Theatre on 18 July and she has kindly invited me to watch it. As Swansea is the gateway to the Gower Peninsula which has some of the finest coastline and countryside in Europe if not the world I will be there if I possibly can.

The show will be presented by the Irenie Rogers Classical Ballet Academy or Ballet Academy Swansea for short. According to Sophia, the show will include the greater part of act 2 of Giselle, the Dance of the flowers from The Nutcracker and various other pieces from the adult ballet and younger students. There are videos of previous performances on the Academy's Facebook page and I think you will agree that the standard is pretty high. I am particularly impressed with the scenes from La Bayadere which, as it happens, Sophia and I studied together in KNT;s intensive from Jane Tucker Manchester last summer (see La Bayadere Intensive Day 3: No Snakes 17 Aug 2016).

Sophia describes herself on twitter as a "feminist, amateur ballet dancer and ballet geek, foodie, crafter and curious". Dance, crafting and food are only her spare time activities by the way. She is primarily an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in nutrition and dietetics with a specialization in obesity and weight management.who teaches infant and chi;d public health at Swansea University.

Over the next few days I hope to find out more about adult dance classes in Swansea in order to compile a directory of such classes in Wales. I already know that Krystal Lowe teaches an adult ballet class at Ballet Cymru's premises at Rogerstone near Newport between 18:00 and 19:30 on Mondays (see Ballet Classes for Adult Beginners on the Ballet Cymru website) and that Louise Lloyd gives classes between 18:15 and 18:30 on Tuesdays at the Dance House in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff (see the Adult Beginners' Ballet page of the National Dance Company's website).  As I get to hear of more classes I will publish them in the blog.

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