Poppy's Intensive Week

Last week I took part in a dance course at Highgate ballet school where I took classes in Ballet, Jazz, Street dance, Variations, Contemporary, Choreography, Flamenco, Musical Theatre and body conditioning.

Throughout the week we got to work with great choreographers and teachers trying and exploring new things before putting together a show for the end of the week. In ballet we worked on improving our frappés and petit battement at the bar and in the centre we worked on pirouettes and jetes as well as much more.

In contemporary we explored deeply into floor work and played around with fast rolls and combos. In Jazz we learnt a really fun and upbeat routine to friends like me from Aladdin which we managed to complete on 1 hour before perfecting it throughout the week. We also took classes in street dance were we learnt another routine with some hip hop and some commercial elements, and in body conditioning we focused on our muscle groups needed for ballet and did crunches and leg lifts and press-ups and stretches to improve our flexibility and turn out.

I really enjoyed variations as we learnt the 3rd shade variation from la bayadere. I had never done Flamenco before and I really enjoyed it! We learnt some basic footwork steps and port des bras and wrist movements.

We got to experience singing in the musical theatre classes as well as dancing in a routine from newsies to the song “seize the day”. On Friday we rehearsed our routines and performed all of our pieces in a small show.

I am so grateful that I got this is experience and I can’t express enough how fun this past week has been!

Street Dance Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNj_AywPaAQ