Beginners Ballet Workshop, St Leonards

OVERVIEW​

At a workshop you will learn to perform a simple ballet routine ("enchainement") inspired by one of the great classical ballets, The Nutcracker.  You will also learn the structure of a ballet lesson and execute simple barre and centre exercises. You will also understand a variety of ballet terminology and the foundation techniques.

Enter the magical world of The Nutcracker, a Christmas classic with a special place in the hearts of ballet fans around the world. In addition to completing a beginners ballet class with barre and centre work, we’ll follow Clara and her friends through the Land of Snow and Kingdom of Sweets to meet the Sugar Plum Fairy, learning more of Petipa’s wonderful choreography and enjoying the music of Tchaikovsky once again.

DURATION​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

4 hours, including regular breaks and refreshments (provided). We will spend about 3 hours dancing, choreographing and performing.

​TYPICAL FORMAT​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

• Introduction to the workshop
• Understand the vocabulary
• Warm up our bodies
• Simple barre exercises
• BREAK, including some history and context to one of the ballet classics
• Simple centre exercises
• Introduction to the ballet
• Learn and perform an enchainement inspired by one of the ballet classics

WHAT TO WEAR

You will need ballet shoes (or lightweight trainers, jazz shoes, non-slip socks or even soft pumps) and comfortable clothes (a leotard and tights or leggings are ideal),

If you do bring pumps or shoes, bring socks as well as it is useful to be able to really feel the floor for some of what we do. We do have some ballet shoes you can borrow, but only if you are size 3-5 (let us know if you would like to borrow a pair). Alternatively, Dance Direct sell dance shoes for very reasonable prices.