Do you have any early memories of being interested in the arts or dance?
I have always been drawn to being creative, art and drawing, exploring different things in that way. In fact, fine arts and sculpture still influence my dance today. I was always looking for ways to fulfil my love of the arts.
What about dance?
I started off dancing at my local village ballet school, in the local village hall. I think I walked past where it was one day and saw people dancing in a class and I told my mum I wanted to give that a go. I was about 4 years old and once I started, I just never stopped.
I went through my ballet exams with my teacher and she got me all the way to Advance 2 which was wonderful. I danced in competitions for ballet. I think it was just that moment of walking past a window and from there never stopping. I just loved dance.
You must have had support at home?
My parents have always been massively supportive of me doing artistic pursuits. I was sometimes really lucky to be awarded scholarships to help with paying the fees for my training. That helped my parents a lot. They have always driven me or walked me to classes, watched my shows, picked me up from various activities and have seen me through many highs and lows in my career. I’m very grateful to them.
What about school?
My dancing certainly started off outside of school. As I became more serious, I was part of the CAT scheme (Centre for Advanced Training) at DanceEast which was my introduction to more professional training and you did that on a Wednesday evening and a Sunday. You can do that alongside your normal schooling.
For my equivalent of my university education, I trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds. I did my three years for my BA and then I did my Masters at Verve.
It seems to me that the standards you need to reach in ballet are very high. Is that accurate?
With ballet, there are grades and exams you have to take and there are different board systems that you can take these under. Your teacher will teach you the routines you have to learn and then a trained professional will assess your skills. You get a grade and obviously this gets harder and harder as you go along. For girls, eventually you have to learn point work and you learn solo routines and things like that.
There are also festivals you can go to and they are very competitive, and are often your first experience of performing. My parents would drive me around to these festivals and I would often get remarks that said I had “potential” and I think some people could see that I had the drive to work hard and could go on to have a career if I put the time in. That I could take my dancing further.
Did you learn about the fitness requirements and diet as well?
The CAT training was wonderful. It is a really well integrated team. I went to that training in Ipswich at DanceEast, and it was there where fitness people came in, dieticians, and we had regular Pilates sessions.
There were physiotherapists who would go through independent body conditioning with you. You would learn to strengthen your body, how to deal with injury and how to avoid injuries. It was really well organised and every base is covered. To learn these skills at such a young age was incredible. I auditioned to get into the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and was successful and it was there I finished my training.
As I said, I completed my Master’s Degree at Verve and that was based around creating a company set up, working with four different choreographers, developing a show and touring it. That was a very good taster for making someone ready for the professional world. Once I had finished, I had a pretty good grounding in all the requirements to develop a career
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