Ballet Central Tour 2024

As always, the programme is formed around Ballet Central’s relationships with leading choreographers and provides the opportunity for students to experience performance in front of a ticket-buying audience. Central School of Ballet is the only professional dance training school in the UK providing touring experience on such a scale.

This year’s company is made up of 32 young dancers, many of whom will make their debut on a professional stage.

The Ballet Central 2024 tour will feature Stay On It by Jules Cunningham, a new piece choregraphed especially for the tour, accompanied by a rhythmic track from American composer Julius Eastman. Cunningham was a longtime performer with Merce Cunningham and then with Michael Clark. Now a choreographer, they make works that bear traces of their dance heritage – a preference for classical lines and mathematical structures but distinctly personal and intimate.

A second newly commissioned work is Night Flight v2.0, a high energy ballet with striking lines and celestial formations by Carolyn Bolton, performed to a new score by Phillip Feeney. Carolyn trained at the Martha Graham School (USA) and Béjart Ballet Lausanne and has performed with Rambert Dance Company, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance and Julie Cunningham & Company. In 2022, Carolyn was nominated for a Black British Theatre Award for Best Teacher and, in 2023, was appointed Creative Director of ENBYouth.

Ballet Central MA student Daniel Davidson presents I think we’re on different planets, a moving evocation of heartache and our yearning for connection. Daniel was a member of Scottish Ballet and later Rambert Dance Company. He recently joined Jean Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show as Assistant Choreographer to Marion Motin.

The repertoire is completed by the final act of Petipa’s Coppélia, a celebration of classical ballet staged by Adela Ramirez, with a stunning score by Leo Delibes.

Ballet Central was created in 1984 as the touring company of Central School of Ballet to give Central’s graduating students the opportunity of professional performance experience.

Populated by the final year students of the BA (Hons) Professional Dance & Performance degree, joining the Ballet Central company forms a core part of the degree course and, most importantly, supports graduate employment. The Ballet Central tour visits towns and cities across the UK every spring and summer.

Ballet Central graduates go on to dance companies including English National Ballet, Northern Ballet, Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Scottish Ballet, Ballet Black and Rambert Dance Company, as well as international dance companies across the globe.

For further information, please contact Katherine Camps Kilgour at Bright Media on 07958 649502 or email katherine@brightmediauk.com