The Monthly interviews local ballet dancer, Anna McCoy – Part 1 – Right from the beginning – Always Dancing

What are your earliest memories regarding being attracted to dancing?

My earliest memory would be of watching all the holiday videos my family has, and I was always dancing. Even when I couldn’t walk properly and my parents were holding me up, I was still trying to dance. If I heard music I would run towards it. You know when you are on holiday and musicians are playing outside, I would always respond to that music, I would dance in the centre of the square.

I can remember the paediatrician telling my mum that I was very flexible, that I had a lot of mobility, and I think that was where it started to click with my mum that I wanted to dance.

I took a detour into gymnastics and for a while. I was a competitive gymnast, but that just wasn’t right for me at that time. I also come from a very musical family so I was always surrounded by classical music. Music was all around me and that made me listen to classical music and it allowed me to understand that kind of music from a very young age.

Anna McCoy

Did you get a lot of support at home?

Yes, I had a very supportive family, a very musical family. They were also quite a sporting family. We were also a very determined and in some ways a competitive family. I am pretty sure once my family realised that I really wanted to do something serious about ballet, they supported me.

I ended up at a local ballet school, three times a week at the Church Hall. I watched ballet at every opportunity. Later I went along to the Irish National Youth Ballet in Dublin every Saturday and that gave me opportunities to perform. I would learn The Nutcracker, Snow White and Cinderella.

I would say though, that a lot of what I have done regarding my dance career  has been 95 per cent self-driven; I was always practising by myself and I had the gymnastics training which had shown me what you needed to do to succeed. I was able to apply some of what I learned during my gymnastic training to work out how to apply myself with my dancing.

And how do you develop your skills?

I think my ballet teachers, in the beginning, were a little soft with me. I was taught the foundations but the more rigorous side, I had to develop that by myself.

My first ballet teacher, Fiona Campbell, brought me the passion for ballet. Another teacher, Laura Walker; she really helped me and guided me to go to London and finally Katherine Lewis, who was the director for the Irish National Ballet; she took me under her wing, she could see I had potential, but I didn’t have a lot of experience. She was the one who helped me develop the performance side of my craft. Those three women played an essential role in my development.

Did you get any support at school?

A little bit. They allowed me to perform at school. The teachers would allow me to go to auditions and to performances, but they always said that I had to make sure I kept up my academic work. My parents said that as well. They were worried that my career would be quite short, that I might get injured, so I had to do well in my exams if I wanted to keep dancing. I am quite an academic person, very studious, so I was able to do both.

I had one particular experience when I was performing at school, it was an all-girls school, and the other girls were laughing at me. In the middle of my solo. I just stopped and said “I am not going to continue if you are not going to appreciate it,” and that said to me that I really wanted to do this.

You end up in the Central School of Ballet in London?

Yes. You need to go to a vocational school because you just can’t keep training at home. You need to be in a place where the focus is on a career in dance. And even there you have to do the work. There are a number of hubs around the world and London is one of them, but even if you are a good dancer, even an exceptional dancer, in London, you are still a small fish in a very big pond. You can be a big fish initially, but eventually when you get out into the ballet world you are a very small fish. So whatever you do, you have to be prepared to work very hard. You have got to put in the work.

You did a degree at the Central School of Ballet?

The degree in London, is a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Dance and Performance. Obviously it has a performance element; we did dance history, psychology, the anatomical part of dance, we did ballet, jazz, musical theatre, singing, acting, and it has an academic element as well. We learnt a lot and it was a very well rounded degree. You can actually convert that degree and study other things after completing it.

I would have liked, I think, a little more training at the Central School of Ballet because part of the degree was held during the Covid years, but regardless, I do think it was a very good degree, and a wonderful experience.

Anna McCoy
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