'Soaking up the moment'
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Dear Dancers,
Wishing you a happy and peaceful Easter.
'It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine'
from 'The Secret Garden', Frances Hodgson Burnett.
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Beautiful Spring, filled with hope and renewal. Whilst a slow, chilly start, nature is simply going at its own tempo, aptly reflected in this lovely quote.
Each seasonal newsletter is filled with gratitude for your support of classes, the joy you bring, a passion for learning and developing your ballet.
With our often busy and demanding days, a dose of ballet with its ritual, detail and strenuous aspects, helps lift away worry and stress; 'dancing it all out' with others makes you feel much better and calmer.
Contemplation
Each time I write a newsletter, I reflect on this stormy, restless world. It is beset with social problems of such enormity and need, everything is moving too fast with the intensity of news and information overload. This can affect how we feel in our daily lives, our hopes and dreams.
Therefore, our exercise practice whichever that may be, grounds us, keeps a personal focus, strengthens our physical being, clears the head and takes us away from the negative. We all need our minds to drift each day to something that is beautiful and ballet is certainly in the mix.
On the note of beauty....
Babies
Congratulations to two of our dancers:
Hannah gave birth to a baby girl, Arabella, in January and Becca to a baby girl, Clara, in March. With impressive dedication, both dancers took class up to the week before.
We wish them all happiness and hope both babies will be future dancers!
Manon
The Royal Ballet season of the fabulous 'Manon' has now finished.
It's a treasured ballet in my heart for all sorts of reasons.
I have been fortunate to attend two performances with Francesca Hayward, Marcelino Sambé and Alexander Campbell. A number of you have also been to other casts or the live screening and it's been lovely hearing about the different interpretations, your ROH experiences.
Alexander Campbell made his retirement performance in Manon. A dancer I have watched over the years with Francesca, my favourite partnership. Such a shame The Royal Ballet have not recorded a performance of their outstanding Manon or Giselle even; they are particularly gifted dancers in these roles with natural acting ability, a rare spiritual connection.
Here are a couple of clips though of Alexander with Francesca in The Nutcracker and with the delightful Yuhui Choe in the 'Bluebird' coda. His clarity of line, elevation and effortless pirouettes so apparent, how I shall miss watching this wonderful dancer.
Classes resume Tuesday 2nd April.
A class booking email with upcoming workshops in repertoire, basic and intermediate technique and any updates will follow (unless you are on newsletter mailing only).
Do let me know if you wish to unsubscribe from either.
Love, kindness, faith and hope.
Easter blessings to you and your families.
Ali x
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