About Us
11 Roubles is a community for Adult Ballet students of all ages and abilities, whether you're brand new to the art form or a seasoned veteran, we hope this website will entertain, educate and inspire you.
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Dance is a wonderful and transformative discipline; physically it improves strength, flexibility, co-ordination, emotionally it soothes, heals, brings joy and spiritually it allows the soul to soar.
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It also creates a unique community, it is not unusual for friendships that are formed over fouettés to become life long bonds of love, support and leg warmer envy.
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We hope you enjoy our website.
Who Are We?
Ali
&
Rebecca
Alison Maxwell BA (Hons) ARAD
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Ali is a Royal Academy of Dance qualified teacher, holds a BA(Hons) in Dance Education and has been teaching for 28 years. Classical ballet vocational training was with Ruth French and also coached by Jean Nuckey at Stella Mann School.
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After gaining her RAD Advanced Ballet she went on to dance professionally with Dublin City Ballet.
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Following 2 more ‘paths’ as a Registered Nurse and an aerobics teacher, the calling back to ballet arose and a teacher training with the Royal Academy of Dance transpired.
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Whilst living in the USA for 8 years, Ali taught at various schools in the New York area, choreographing for school performances and also returned to performing for the ‘I’ll have what she’s having…’ Dance Project in Princeton.
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Ali teaches her adult ballet classes, repertoire and technique workshops at Glyme Hall in Chipping Norton.
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Recent projects:
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Alongside her colleagues, Louise Gould and Julie Bowers, Ali teaches on the ‘Day of Dance’ for adult ballet, held at Birmingham Royal Ballet Studios and first piloted in August 2017.
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In February 2018 and 2019, Ali choreographed for the Take Part Dance and Drama February workshop and performance week at Chipping Norton Theatre, collaborating with Emily Scates and Thomas Page to produce Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes and the sequel 'Curtain Up'.
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Rebecca Thomas BA (Hons)
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Rebecca trained as a Wardrobe Mistress at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and has a degree in Theatre Design from UCE Birmingham, she is also a City & Guilds qualified Milliner.
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She began her professional career at The Bristol Hippodrome as a Theatrical Dresser working with various companies including Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Moscow Classical Ballet and Welsh National Opera.
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‘Life on the road’ beckoned and she toured with numerous shows working her way up the ranks from Wardrobe Assistant to Mistress. There were a lot of Musicals including ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’, ‘Oklahoma!’, ‘Jolson’, ‘Heathcliff’ and ‘Oliver!’
After an inordinate amount of time living out of a suitcase, Rebecca came off the road and retrained as a Milliner, an internship with Stephen Jones allowed her to work on projects with John Galliano, Antonio Berardi and Julian Macdonald.
Rebecca has also worked in Television (Casualty, Maid Marion, Casanova) and the Music Business, in areas of Artist Liaison and Merchandise.
Rebecca has a lifelong love for Ballet that started at the age of two and a half with her first pair of pink slippers and lessons at The Bristol School of Dancing, she’s been taking class (as an amateur) ever since and is grateful for the patience and encouragement from all her teachers over the years.
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Why 11 Roubles?
There is a famous scene in the 1985 film 'White Nights' where Raymond (Gregory Hines) bets Nikolai (Mikhail Baryshnikov) that he cannot turn the corresponding number of pirouettes to the amount of roubles that are in his (Hines') possession, "Eleven Roubles......eleven pirouettes",
Baryshnikov raises an eyebrow, removes his jacket and turns eleven perfect pirouettes, thus winning the bet.
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The opening sequence of the film is Nikolai performing the Roland Petit ballet 'Le Jeune Homme et la Mort'; the curtain call (in the days before CGI) was filmed at the Bristol Hippodrome and the gentleman on the right, paging the curtain, is John Randall, who was the Theatre's Technical Director at the time.
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John gave me my first professional job in the Theatre, employing me as a Dresser at the Hippodrome, I am forever grateful to him for that opportunity, I learnt an enormous amount, had a fabulous time, made many friends and invaluable contacts. It was the start of my career and I cannot imagine a better foundation.
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Six degrees of separation from Misha, well maybe, but this is really a tribute for John; professional, kind, and an absolute Gentleman.
- Rebecca