The Royal Ballet School - Work Experience

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get to have a weeks work experience at the Royal Ballet Lower School which I really loved. The school itself is just stunning and is situated in Richmond Park amongst deer and greenery. My first day was really exciting as the gates were opened and a beautiful 18th Century Building (White Lodge - shown below) was in front of me.

The Royal Ballet Lower School, White Lodge

The boarding school is for students aged between 11-16 years where they will take their GCSE exams in their final years. Their afternoons/evenings are spent learning dance - mainly classical ballet but additionally contemporary, Scottish and Irish dance. If they are successful in the audition process they will continue on to the Upper School in Covent Garden.

The Wardrobe Department

The Wardrobe Department

During the few days I was there I was working with Caroline Hume, the Wardrobe Mistress, where we were adding final touches, organising costumes, attending rehearsals and fittings and making final alterations in preparation for the Summer Fair at the end of the week. It was a lot of basic skills but it was sew useful to put what I had learnt in my first year at uni into good practice.

Costumes that aren't machine washable have sweat pads sewn
under the arms which are removed after the performance
and machine washed separately 

Pattern cutting tiny bodices! Generally, classical ballet
dancers measurements are all quite a similar so their bodices
rarely need altering from one year to the next so can be reused.

As well as this I was lucky enough to meet and work with many talented staff including rehearsal pianists and dance teachers who have danced professionally and had incredible experiences.

Tutus are stacked on top of each other on a tutu pole

I felt so privileged to be around such talented and hard working students. Everyone at the school was such an inspiration but I particularly liked how it really felt like a family. It was also so exciting to watch them rehearse and perform to such a high standard and to know that one day they may be performing on the most famous stages in the world!

The students on the Royal Opera House Stage

I am now following one of the student's blogs who has graduated this year and starting in the Upper School in September. Prisca Bertoni (www.all4ballet.com) describes what it is like to be a student at White Lodge - a pleasure to read and I am so excited to see where she ends up in the future - same as I feel about all the students. It is such a tough industry but I really hope they all get the future they deserve, hope and dream for.

Prisca Bertoni

See Prisca's blog post about leaving White Lodge and her final performances here. She posts photographs of wearing the bodice/tutu that I worked on.

Picture 10 on The Classic FM website also shows the tutus being worn on the Royal Opera House stage at Linbury Theatre! I got far too excited about this!