Something uniquely special

Janet Lewis' 2006 award-winning English Youth Ballet recruited 110 local dancers from auditions attended by 400 and laboriously put all these daughters, and eight sons, onto the stage. The parents and siblings came to find out what it was like to see their family dancers in a professional performance of a classic ballet.

The atmosphere among them seemed a subdued combination of amazement, apprehension, unexpected delight and, for many, revelation. But as the experience continued and deepened, the sense of involvement likewise, by the end the crowd were pouring out their gratitude and enthusiasm.

The format is that the four principal characters are danced by experienced professionals who join in the teaching of the more than 100 children of ages eight to 18, who play the subsidiary roles. The EYB tour this year does this also in Preston, Yeovil, Stoke-on-Trent, High Wycombe, Dunstable and Southsea. Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker are also performed.

The children for Coppelia underwent 11 six-hour weekend sessions of class, coaching and rehearsals over seven weeks, with Boundstone Community College the local venue staging seven of those meetings.

Janet Lewis explained: "My 15 staff include six teachers, four of them the principal dancers (Julianne Rice-Oxley and Emma Lister alternating the role of Swanilda and the village Burgomistress, Kasper Cornish and Matthew Allen sharing Franz].

"The idea is to prepare the children in the provinces so they don't have to come to London. The idea is also done in America but I don't know of it anywhere else."

The award was from The Stage, for special achievement in regional theatre. English Youth Ballet have been doing this for 19 years.

The result was a show almost as rewarding for the neutral in the audience, of which I was one.

The enthusiasm for the dancers is, of course, a given but the result, from start to finish, was an utter delight and a triumph for organisation and performing instinct. For many it will prove the experience of a lifetime. Some will go on to professional careers fired by these four Worthing performances. The majority will never perform likewise again, some of them with bitter-sweet regret.

Those who took part were from more than 40 dance schools and teachers in the region.

Rafaella Covino took the Coppelia role of the girl doll and finally came to do the solo which she delivered immaculately. The 109 others appeared in village crowds, friends of the couple Swanilda and Franz, and in the many set-piece dances. The boys figured also as soldier dolls, partners in the charming Betrothal Dance and alone in the Combat Dance.

Rice-Oxley and Cornish gave solid satisfaction as Swanilda and Franz in the performance I saw, while Lister was a rather stiff and dispassionate Burgomistress. And the true star of the show was Trevor Wood as Dr Coppelius. I saw his wonderfully observed reading of this comedy role here a year or two with Vienna Festival Ballet. It was tremendous fun then and would have stolen the show again this time. But, of course, the specially-trained cast of 110 did that.

Make sure you see EYB's next production here. Nothing can be as uniquely special.