Elmhurst Ballet School will return to live performance after a 15-month hiatus with two dance programmes, kicking off on 3 & 6 July with the graduate year students of Elmhurst Ballet Company in Proxemics and concluding on 7 & 8 July with the whole school performing in Elevate.
The Birmingham-based school returned to face-to-face teaching in April. This summer term, almost 200 young students will return to live performance in front of a socially distanced audience.
For Proxemics, the 20-strong Elmhurst Ballet Company will perform a mixed programme of work: a classical ballet excerpt from Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère and Capricious, a new contemporary dance work from Studio Wayne McGregor created by Odette Hughes, the company’s Associate Director, in collaboration with Elmhurst Ballet Company.
Also in the Proxemics programme are Lines by Brandon Lawrence and Davy Lazare, a new jazz dance piece by Zak Nemorin and Silem, a new work by Elmhurst Ballet Company member Enrique Ngbokota.
Elevate is another mixed bill for which Birmingham Royal Ballet Soloist Laura Day will create a new work for years 7–9 set to Vaughan Williams’s "English Folk Dances" and years 10 and 11 will perform Sleepwalkers inspired by Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty and created by New Adventures Resident Artist Kerry Biggin.
Mark Baldwin will create Melody Space set to Handel’s "The Messiah" for year 12 students and year 13 will present an excerpt from David Bintley’s Cinderella. Peter Leung will create a new work for upper school students set to Dvorák’s "String Quartet in F major" and works by Gloria Grigolato and Lee Robinson (classical ballet) and Ana Garcia (flamenco) complete Elevate.