Spring Term 2025:

Weekly Class Schedule: Monday 6th January – Saturday 5th April 2025

Ballet Exams: Sunday 23rd and Sunday 20th March 2025

Nutcracker and Other Suite Things Workshop:  Wednesday 11th December 2024 (Booking now closed, workshop is full)

Rehearsals take place at the URC on  Friday 6th, Monday 9th, Tuesday 10th 5-8pm, Saturday 7th 9.15-12nooon,   Wednesday 11th December 5-9pm, to coincide with Carols in Pond Square

Nutcracker and other Suite Things Performance at the Highgate URC

Wednesday 11th December 2024 7.15-8.15pm in the chapel space at the Highgate URC, All are Welcome! 

With all money raised going to C4Ws- churches in Camden providing winter shelters for the homeless.

We invite you all to our annual free charity performance this year! Enjoy watching HBS dancers perform excerpts of The Nutcracker with a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie or two. The performance is free and children are welcome. Please spare some loose change for the collecting buckets! Monies raised go to support the annual winter weekend shelter at the URC organised by C4Ws.

 

Congratulations!

Well done to Alexi Mutasa, Eleonora Colista, Frances Webber, Marlie Bethel and Sophie Ollier who took part in the annual Cecchetti Children’s Awards this year which took place on Sunday 17th November 2024 at Central School of Ballet in SE1. Eleonora and Alexi gained Commendations in the Lower Junior and Junior Sections.

Congratulations to Jess McGillion who  auditioned successfully for the Tring Classical Ballet Academy Sunday programme and joins from January 2025.

 

HBS dancers feature on World Ballet (nerd) Day 2nd November 2024

and a dedication to Richard Glasstone

Abigail Price and Emily Licis featured in the first ever online World Ballet (nerd) Day hosted by the delightful Ballet Reign team aka Jordan and Eden. These two young balletomanes have a popular Youtube channel called Ballet Reign and when the Royal Ballet decided not to produce World Ballet Day 2024, Jordan and Eden invited dancers and teachers from around the world to send videos in for Ballet Reign’s own version they called World Ballet (nerd) Day! Here is the link:

https://youtu.be/-kSoNfg5IEQ?si=VdgI3A6PBTwKOFJd

Abigail and Emily were filmed doing the Cecchetti Advanced 1 traditional syllabus by George Massey (who produced Ballet’s Secret Code). The class was dedicated to Richard Glasstone MBE, master teacher of the Cecchetti Method, who passed away on 1st October 2024.

 

Goodbye and Good Luck!

Congratulations, Goodbye and Good Luck to long term HBS student Tilda Marriage- Massey who has gained a place at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and danced her final summer performances with the National Youth Ballet! Goodbye and good luck to Emma Scott who attends  LSE next year.

Emily Licis has a deferred place at The Place for Dance and continues at HBS until July 2025. She joined the Rambert Saturday Dance Programme for aspiring dancers for 2024-25. Micah Wei retains his place on Cecchetti Scholars and Cecchetti Associates.

Bella Rose Schilling and Sophie Ollier have gained places on the Cecchetti Scholars programme for 2024-25.

Chloe Forsyth, Eleonora Colista, Frances Webber, Marlie Bethel, Melissa Cagler, Naomi Horn, Sophie Ollier and Taia Goehring have gained places on the Cecchetti Associates Scheme for 2024-25 and Frances Webber has also been accepted onto CAT at The Place for the next academic year.

 

POSTCARDS

Highgate Ballet School Performance Weekend at the Arundel Centre, Channing School Highgate N6 on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th July 2024

Congratulations to all the dancers in Primary and above who took part in three performances at the theatre located in Channing School over a very busy weekend! Guest artist Elsa Pountney a former student at HBS now at the Grad Pro programme in Birmingham, graced us with a variation from La Bayadere.  Thank you so much to all the backstage helpers and volunteers for assisting with chaperoning and costumes and a huge thank you to Pamela Tinker for all the additional costumes and alterations!

Thank you So Much Maddy!

It is with huge sadness that we say a partial goodbye to Maddy Wynne – Jones who is leaving us temporarily after 17 years of dedicated teaching and will be hugely missed! It won’t be for long though and she will be back to do workshops and hopefully to teach at HBS regularly in the very near future.

Goodbye to Flor!

We say a sad farewell to Florencia Riverti our contemporary dance teacher as she leaves HBS to work here and abroad, as a freelance dancer and choreographer. Flor will continue to work with us as a guest teacher for workshops so we hope she will not be gone for too long!

 

Old News

Highgate Ballet School Dancers perform in the second annual pantomime with the Philippian Players at St Philip’s Church Hall, Finchley, 18th and 19th January 2024

Senior dancers from the unset class and junior dancers from contemporary dance performed in ‘Aladdin’ in 3 performances on 18th and 19th January 2024. Directed by former HBS dad Jean-Marc Evans who was a Philippian player in his childhood, the dancers were warmly welcomed by cast and audience alike. This is the second time Highgate Ballet School dancers have taken part in a most enjoyable local performance event and we look forward to them dancing again at the next pantomime in December 2024.

 

Annual Nutcracker Performance: Wednesday 13th December 2023

 

Our annual popular and much anticipated charity performance of The Nutcracker (and other suite things) took place in the beautiful chapel space of the URC at the end of the autumn term and the building was packed out by an enthusiastic audience of mums, dads, grandparents, siblings, former HBS dancers and friends! After the performance, buckets were passed around to raise money for the annual winter homeless shelter which hosts up to 20 guests on Sunday nights in the URC between November and February. This year’s charity grand total was £719! Photos of the performance by Karolina Webb will be posted on HBS social media pages.

As a very special highlight of the performance this year, guest artists Elsa Pountney and Ivan Kiselov delighted everyone with the spectacular Nutcracker Pas de Deux. Elsa Pountney is a former pupil at HBS and joined the new Carlos Acosta Scholarship programme beginning January 2024. Ivan Kiselov is a student at the London Studio Centre and is a former Danish U19 Ballroom Dancing champion. We look forward to Elsa and Ivan dancing as guests with HBS again next year!

Congratulations to our dancers  2023-2024

The Annual Cecchetti Classical Ballet Awards aka Mabel Ryan Awards took place at Elmhurst Ballet School Birmingham, Sunday November 19th 2023 and several HBS dancers took part in this prestigious event. Well done to Marlie Bethel and Frances  Webber who were commended in the Lower Junior Section and to Eneliz Saipi, Lara Cohen and Sara Lebetiou  who were commended in the Senior Section of the Awards!

CONGRATULATIONS 2023!

Micah Wei has been promoted to the Senior Group of the Cecchetti Scholars for the school year 2023-24.

Emily Licis, who trained in Brighton and is a former Cecchetti Scholar Group 2, joins HBS this year in the Advanced 1 class.  She is also dancing with English National Ballet Associates.

Chloe Forsyth, Frances Webber, Naomi Horn, Sophie Ollier, Marlie Bethel, Lara Cohen, Rebecca Marinelli, Micah Wei and Amyas Norman have all successfully gained places by audition for the Cecchetti Associates Programme which is a popular monthly Sunday ballet and dance class scheme for non-vocational students who study Cecchetti.

Isabelle McNamara has gained a place on the Dancer’s Degree Course at Rambert Ballet School starting September 2023

Eleanor Campbell has gained a place on the Dancer’s Degree course at the Barcelona Institute of the Arts in Spain from September 2023

Tilda Marriage-Massey has successfully auditioned for National Youth Ballet again this year and who dances also with the Rambert Associates and English National Ballet Youth Dance Company.

Well done to all the dancers who have taken and passed their ballet exams this year from Primary to Intermediate Foundation and all the Grades in between!

Look out for HBS dancer Lila McNamara who features in the ensemble of school pupils in the full length feature film of Matilda!