The Faculty

The Principal, Patricia McDonald FRAD, LISTD, has some forty years experience in training dancers for professional careers in the fields of classical ballet and commercial theatre. She is a Member of the Executive and Artistic Committees of the Royal Academy of Dancing, for which she is also a Major Examiner, which has given her a broad knowledge of professional dance training and standards worldwide. She reconstituted and re-launched the school under its present name in 1977 and subsequently led it through the process of change and development to its present internationally recognised status. In doing so she has attracted, and in turn had the help of, a dedicated team of highly qualified and talented teachers and musicians, each being an established specialist in one or more of those fields of dance, music and drama, covered by the courses on offer at NBS.

Some on the faculty have had years of professional stage experience on which they can draw to prepare their students for the physical and mental demands of their chosen career. Others have the technical expertise and theoretical knowledge, which they can impart to the student and give a deeper insight into the range of dance styles and disciplines and their history which is so crucial to a creative approach to dance. Yet others have biological expertise and understanding of the physical and mental demands of the dance profession, so as to be able to prepare the dedicated would-be dancer to meet them. The academic faculty is assisted in the day to day school programme by an experienced team of administrators, technicians and other support staff.

All work together at Northern Ballet School to enable the aspirant student to become the artistically accomplished, technically skilled, well educated and assured performer or teacher demanded by the theatre dance industry of today and tomorrow and which is the hallmark of the NBS graduate.