Performance, Experience & Professional Prospects

Since the school was reconstituted in 1977, live public performance experience has been an integral part of the training and it’s contribution has been progressively increased, culminating with the move to the Dancehouse in 1992 and the fulfilment of a long term plan with the opening of an ‘in house’ publicly licensed 430 seat theatre, in which regular student productions can be staged at a professional level.

Each July the annual Dance Showcase is presented. All full time students take part in this major show, which aims to illustrate the full range of the NBS training curriculum in theatre dance, including singing and drama. This introduces new students to the rigours of public performance and theatrical discipline.

There are at least two other major annual productions, a full length classical ballet and a musical theatre production, which usually take place in December and March/April respectively. Regular choreographic workshops are also held in the theatre, to encourage individual student creativity and to nurture personal concepts of dance. Teaching schedules and theatre hire permitting, triple bills and other shows are also arranged.
The most prestigious of NBS ‘in house’ productions was the original Gala Opening of Dancehouse Theatre in 1994 by HRH The Princess Margaret, who was so taken by the show that she described the dancing as ‘brilliant’, in a subsequent letter to the Principal. But student performance experience is not only gained in the Dancehouse Theatre.
The school is often asked to provide dancers and dancing at other public venues and past occasions have included a spectacular Spanish routine as the Air 2000 contribution to the Royal Opening celebrations at Manchester Airport Terminal 2, a Can-Can to enliven an exhibition of French Impressionist Art at the Whitworth Art Gallery and the first dance presentation ever, the divertissments from Sleeping Beauty, on the stage of the Bridgewater Concert Hall, shortly after it’s opening. NBS also provided dancers in a prominent role at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002.

Other equally valuable student performance opportunities and experiences include workshops for children and for handicapped groups in schools and other venues, promoting dance as a theatrical art form and as a possible career for those who might not otherwise know of or consider such an option.
A recent example of such outreach work was in collaboration with the Hallé Orchestra in ‘Around the World with the Hallé’, as part of its Education Programme, in which NBS students choreographed and taught dance works in a number of schools during 2003/4. Other collaborative projects have taken place with the BBC and Granada Television. An annual project involves NBS 3rd Year students choreographing dance works specifically composed for them by senior students at the Royal Northern College of Music.

NBS graduates have joined classical and modern theatre companies and are gracing stages all over the world with their accomplished dance technique and artistry. Graduate teachers are passing on those skills to young aspirant dancers in schools from Norway to Hong Kong and from Africa to North America, as the Principal has detailed in her introduction to this prospectus.

The School supports its programme of public performance experience with a range of advice and training on career promotion, which includes CV/Portfolio Preparation, Audition Technique and job search planning. It also has strong industry recruitment links and agency contacts, with the result that the vast majority of graduates obtain good quality dance employment within a short while of completing their training, the majority having received contract offers even before graduation. NBS graduates automatically enjoy the benefits of provisional membership of Equity.

Where will your career take you?

Amongst the classical companies which NBS trained dancers have joined are;
Adonais, Alexander Roy, Ballet Creations, Ballet Gwent, Ballet Imaginaire, Ballet Ireland, Berlin Oper, Berlin Metropole, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Detmold, Dublin City, Dusseldorf, Essen, European, Gelsenkirchen, Haagen, Hamburg, Hanover, Hong Kong, Israeli, Irish, Kiel, Krefeld, Leipzig, Lewis London, Linz Oper, London City Ballet, Malmo, Munster, Norwegian National, Northern Ballet Theatre, Oldenburg, Romanska, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Scottish, Vienna Festival, Wiener and the Yuma Ballet of Texas.

Jazz Theatre Dance course graduates regularly take up cabaret, commercial and cruise-line theatre, film and television work and have been cast in many West End and International musical theatre productions, including;
Beauty and the Beast, Brigadoon, Buddy, Cabaret, Calamity Jane, Carousel, Cassandra, Cats, Chess, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Evita, Fosse, Funny Girl, Gigi, Gold Diggers, Grease, Hair, Hello Dolly, Hot Stuff, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Kiss Me Kate, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, Oliver, Peter Pan, Phantom of the Opera, Pajama Game, Saturday Night Fever, Some Like It Hot, South Pacific, Spirit of the Dance, Starlight Express, The King and I and West Side Story.

Teachers Course graduates have often chosen to dance professionally before taking up teaching posts throughout the UK and in many countries overseas, including;
Australia, Austria, Bermuda, Botswana, Canada, Canary Isles, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Jersey, Kenya, Luxemböurg, Malaysia, Malta, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and the USA.