Dance yourself dizzy!

REHEARSALS are in full swing for the latest Ballare School of Performing Arts spectacular featuring around 300 children aged between three and 18.

Entitled Worlds Apart, The Beginning of a Journey the performances will take place at the Cultural Hall on May 10 and 11.

The show promises to take the audience on a journey through fve transitional worlds – fantasy, water, futuristic, old and new.

It involves many styles of dance including Ballet, Hip Hop, Contemporary, Cheerleading and Street Dance, to name but a few.

The trip in time through dance and the arts explores imagination, technology, style, materialistic matters, controversy and culture.

The Ballare team will be running the production and staging a technical run before the opening night as the lights and sound will be crucial to its impact.

Volunteers, made up mostly of parents of the students, will assist the backstage team with the hair and make-up demands of the performers and ensure the general welfare and safety of the children.

Hala Al Zayani, the school’s founder and director, said: “Our talented students, dynamic teachers and the dedicated Ballare team has come together to produce our best show yet, in my opinion. It will be nothing less than spectacular!”

Hala started ballet dancing at the age of fve and it became evident from a young age that dance was going to play a big part in her life. She continued her education in London at The Millennium Performing Arts School and having graduated and moved back to Bahrain, she began teaching as well as choreographing for the children’s musical production company, MASK.

She launched Ballare in its state-of-the-art studio in Saar in 2011 and remains convinced that Bahrain has a huge amount of artistic talent, which can only continue to thrive through a well-structured, creative curriculum for students of all ages and abilities.

The wide variety of classes available for children include Ballet, Contemporary, Hip Hop, Cheerleading, Street Dance, Tap, Modern Jazz and Break Dance. There are also adult classes in Ballet, Zumba, Stretch and Flexibility.

Louise Chapman, principal dance teacher, added: “This year we have included in the show a Pas de Deux with two of our students who are showing real promise. Last year this was performed by two teachers

but as result of the progression and standard of dancing among the students at Ballare, we were able to leave this in their capable hands.”

She was introduced to dancing at the age of nine as a way to satisfy her need for physical activity. It wasn’t long before she realised that she had a natural fare for performance and so she became an acrobatics and jazz/hip hop dancer.

She later studied contemporary modern, ballet and tap dancing in order to become a well-rounded artist. At Phil Winston’s Theatreworks College in the UK she developed and nurtured her drama and singing skills and gained qualifcations as an International Dance Teacher’s Association dance teacher.

Louise now boasts 13 years of experience as a dance teacher and has also taught in Budapest, Hungary.

She choreographed Ballare’s frst show last year, which was hailed a huge success, and has also recently choreographed the dances for West Side Story successfully performed by the Academy of Performing Arts, the British School of Bahrain and Mask Theatre Company.

Their colleague Shannon Kennedy joined Ballare last September. The Assemble School of Dance pupil attended Brooksby Melton College and trained for two years in dance and musical theatre.

She has worked with professional dance companies such as Retina and also travelled to New York to dance with and learn from professional choreographers. She was a member of the Dynamite Extreme Cheerleading Squad where she performed and competed at national events.

Shannon successfully achieved a Triple Distinction for her diploma and after graduating from college won a contract with Disneyland Paris as a parade performer and dancer.

After returning to England she joined Phizzical, a performing arts company, and before joining the Ballare team, she appeared with the Sickle Urban Ballet Company, created and ran by Cheryl Whimpers, a former graduate of the Royal Academy of Dance.

l There will be two performances of Worlds Apart, The Beginning of a Journey at the Cultural Hall on May 10 and 11. On Friday it will be staged between 5.30pm-8pm and Saturday’s show will take place between 4.30pm-7pm.

Tickets costing BD10 are on sale at Ballare and between 6pm-8pm at the Bahrain Rugby Club until Sunday.