Courses

More than 120 young dancers are currently training on the various Classical Training Programmes held each week at Northern Ballet Theatre’s headquarters at West Park, Leeds. Find out more about our Programmes by visiting the specific sections: Yorkshire Young Dancer Scheme, Associate Programme, Summer School, Open Classes.

Aims and Identity

By offering unique additional training opportunities, Northern Ballet Theatre’s training programmes aim to enable young people to fulfil their potential in classical dance, and to prepare them for a life as a dancer.

The delivery of the Programmes is based on the following principles, which we believe are unique to Northern Ballet Theatre:

Holistic & Healthy
We take a holistic approach to each young person, taking into consideration their mental and emotional growth along with their physical development. Health and injury prevention are at the very core of each exercise as teaching emphasises correct alignment, fitness and the development of adequate strength at each stage. Nutrition and anatomy are also key elements of the curriculum. Students are actively encouraged to ask questions, conduct research and take responsibility for their own learning. We consider self- esteem central to the ability to fulfil potential.

Individual
We recognise that individual dancers develop in different areas at varying rates from each other. There is therefore significant individual attention in each class that is reflected in individual corrections and personal aims negotiated with students in their notebooks.

Dancer Actor
We aim to encourage students to develop their expressive and dramatic qualities alongside their technical dancing skills as an integral part of each class (particularly senior work). Whereas there is currently no weekly drama class available, we aim to incorporate this in the future and meanwhile offer associate students the opportunity to develop these skills in Summer and Easter course work.

Versatility
With the weekly contemporary technique class (Intermediates and Seniors) we aim to equip young dancers with greater versatility of skills in view of the demands made on today’s professional dancers.