Scottish Ballet dancer Louisa Hassell's behind-the-scenes blog continues as the tour comes to Edinburgh.
18th October.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to be able to join the education department in their workshops for this season. We’ve been to colleges in Glasgow and Dundee so far and have been teaching some company rep from Rubies, Workwithinwork and In Light and Shadow. We’ve been mainly concentrating on Forsythe’s Workwithinwork as it is so physically challenging and a good insight into how modern ballet is evolving. Forsythe takes classical lines then stretches and elongates them to the extreme creating really beautiful movements and positions. I’ve been teaching 2 excerpts from the piece, and have really challenged the students. It’s very hard work but feels great when you get it. We’ve hopefully been giving a little introduction to Forsythe’s style and just how far you can push your body. I’m sure they were all pretty sore after the session; I certainly was!
L-R: Victoria Willard, Sophie Laplane, Luciana Ravizzi,
Victor Zarallo, Daniel Davidson and Amy Hadley
Amy Hadley helps Daniel Davidson with his costume
Luciana Ravizzi chooses her dancing shoes
This week the company was in Edinburgh with three performances at the Festival Theatre. I’ve always really enjoyed performing here as the stage is lovely and big and the back stage area is one of the nicest. The dressing rooms are close together and over just two floors meaning there are less stairs to get to the stage! The corridors are carpeted with lots of space, perfect for lounging around, eating and stretching between rehearsals and performances. Unfortunately there were a couple of injuries this week with two of the girls twisting their ankles. It’s pretty frustrating when this happens, especially when you’ve put so much work in during rehearsals, so I wish the girls a speedy recovery and I hope they will be back on stage soon. It did mean that two other girls got the opportunity to dance though, and both did fantastically.
Kara McLaughlin gets her shoes ready for the stage
Soon Ja Lee and Daniel Davidson take a break
Bethany Kingsley-Garner gets ready for the show
This week also saw the first Outside In performance of this season. It is an hour-long presentation giving an opportunity for the audience to see the work that goes into each performance. There are demonstrations by the dancers and musicians and those dancers who are brave enough talk about what it’s like to dance their roles and what the rehearsal process entails. It is still a relatively new event for the company but each season it’s getting more and more popular. It gives the audience a real chance to understand more about the dancing and music in the performances and the people behind it all.
Eve Mutso breaks her shoes in