Taynuilt ballet team show so much eastern promise
A TOP team from Taynuilt-based Ballet West has just returned from a highly successful tour of Malaysia.
The Ballet West Asia Tour group presented workshops for more than 150 young dancers, culminating in a spectacular showcase performance.
The group was led by principal Gillian Barton, and included deputy principal Jonathan Barton, teacher and guest principal dancer Martin Fenton and two star students – Uyu Hiromoto and Oscar Ward.
Gillian described the events in Malaysia, in partnership with DAI (Direct Academia Interna- tional). She said: ‘We had three days of intensive workshops with different students every day. The workshops were completely full. The participants for the workshops came from all over Malaysia and from Singapore.
‘Jonathan ran the ballet programme assisted by Uyu and Martin ran the contemporary course assisted by Oscar.
‘The rest of the week was spent rehearsing the groups for the performance on June 12 at Penang PAC theatre. The performance was spectacular.
‘Oscar and Uyu also performed superbly. I could hardly believe that Jonathan and Martin had only worked with the students for one day plus a few rehearsals. It was such a polished performance. No other teachers could have done better.
‘We also held an audition for 60 students and another 300 sent in audition DVDs to be considered for a place at the full-time school. We currently have two students from Singapore enrolled on the full-time course at Ballet West.
‘Looks as though we’ll be having a few more. Last October our Malaysian partners, DAI, brought five students from Malaysia to Taynuilt for a short course of study.’