Perform

Performance opportunities are important, particularly for the aspiring young dancer, to gain experience dancing in front of a live audience.  We staged our first ballet in December 2019, Peter and The Wolf.  Peak Ballet has also been involved in smaller opportunities to perform locally within the community and students of all ages are encouraged to take part (see below).  In addition, each term Peak Ballet’s young dancers are given the opportunity to dance for their parents/carers within the studio setting to encourage and nurture a performance quality that is so important in the art of dance. Scroll down to see details of each performance!

July 2024, Giselle, English Youth Ballet, Nottingham

Peak Ballet’s two most senior dancers successfully auditioned and returned to dance with EYB in their beautiful and haunting production of Giselle. They both had another tremendous experience dancing with EYB’s professionals and I was particularly proud of their poise and stage presence. Well done girls!

29th June 2024, Bakewell International Day of Dance, 20th Anniversary 

Some of Peak Ballet’s beautiful Silver Swans and Adult Dancers took to the streets of Bakewell and graced Bath Gardens at their Day of Dance. We performed a Mazurka warm up, barre (with no barre!) to Singing in the Rain (although the weather was kind in the end!), port de bras, two ‘Swan Dances’ to a jazzy version of a Swan Lake waltz, an adage and our very own take on the Charleston before inviting the audience to join our cool down. We all had such fun dancing to a huge audience.

“through rain and shine, we danced all day. As graceful and elegant as swans, they say”

March 2024, Making Space Dance Festival at Buxton Opera House

Our Grade 2, 3 & 5 dancers took part in the Making Space Dance Festival where the graded groups worked together to create a piece about friendship and community to the song Count on Me by Bruno Mars.

October 2023, Silver Swans – performance at RAD HQ

Some of Peak Ballet’s Silver Swans came together over the summer to put together a filmed dance for part of the RAD’s Silver Swans Celebration on 1st October. This coincided with the United Nations International Day of Older Persons. We had a lot of laughs practicing and filming this piece which was premiered at the event on 1st October.

November 2022, Silver Swans Social – an intergenerational afternoon of dance!

Peak Ballet’s Silver Swans and some of our younger dancers met for a social event at Mayfield Memorial Hall to raise funds supporting Ukrainian dancers with their lessons at Peak Ballet. The dancers of all ages performed for each other and then socialised with drinks and nibbles.

July 2022, The Sleeping Beauty, English Youth Ballet, Nottingham 

Five of Peak Ballet’s young dancers successfully auditioned to join English Youth Ballet‘s production of The Sleeping Beauty.  Professional dancers (formerly from The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Northern Ballet) took the leading roles while our young dancers danced alongside them in solo and corps de ballet roles. It was a tremendous experience for our young dancers and we could not be more proud of their determination to improve their technical and performance skills. They all shone on the stage and dazzled each audience!

Molly as ‘Lady Energy’

Rehearsal Photos

July 2021, A Masked Ball, 11 different Peak Ballet classes

This is Peak Ballet’s tribute to the hours we spent dancing at home/ via a screen/ behind a mask during 2020/21 – the Covid-19 years. Dancers spanning the generations from age 8 to 70+ took part in this inspired project to make the very best of a less than ideal situation.  The performance is our take on MacMillan’s Dance of the Knights (a masked ball) from his ballet Romeo and Juliet.

23rd February, 2020 – Swan Lake Dreams, Birmingham Royal Ballet

It is not only our younger dancers who like to perform. One of our adult dancers, Wendy, who only took up ballet as an adult, has just had the fabulous experience of dancing with Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) at The Birmingham Hippodrome in their recent production of Swan Lake Dreams. Wendy’s dream of dancing on the big stage with her favourite company came true after she successfully auditioned to join this production (led and coached by BRB) which gives local dancers the opportunity of dancing with each other and the BRB professionals! The performance was of a very high standard and Wendy commanded with stage with such grace and poise that she looked like she’d been doing it for years. We are very proud of Wendy who committed many hours to rehearsals in Birmingham.

1st December, 2019 – Peter and The Wolf

Peak Ballet added to the traditional story and Prokofiev’s score to include suitable parts for all our aspiring young dancers. Being a small school, we have the privilege of getting to know each dancer and as such took into consideration their personality and strengths to showcase their skills (this applies most specifically to the older dancers who took solo and duet roles). Here’s what one parent wrote after the show, “I wanted to tell you that I thought your show was actually the best I’ve ever seen in my 4 decades of watching such things. A joy to see the young performers  having the time of their lives and having fun, great matching of characters to parts, much originality with the set and the action, a wonderful atmosphere of unstuffiness and, of course, some great dance. It was clear a huge amount of hard work had gone into this and I just wanted to tell you that it is appreciated.”

Click on the photos from our dress rehearsal to view.

10th November, 2018 – The Poppy Path

Peak Ballet was asked to produce a piece of work to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War in collaboration with Hecate Arts at Cromford Mills. At The Poppy Path Peak Ballet dancers represented the families of Cromford and transported the audience to a time when women ‘held the fort’ and children were caught between the innocence of childhood and the horrors of war.  During WW1, Cromford Mills was used as a laundry where the women of the village worked.

The video of the performance (below) captures the repetitive nature of this work whilst the children play in the shadow of war. Choreographed by the dancers (children, adults and Silver Swans), the commemorative work used movement and mime to tell poignant stories and portray the powerful emotions of those left behind when Cromford’s men went to war.

Peak Ballet was delighted at the public response to this piece and is extremely proud of those that took part. The dancers thought nothing of working outside at the mercy of the elements, the traffic noise or their uneven ‘stage’!

Work with schools – This small class of KS2 pupils (ages 7-11) had a series of 6 one-hourly lessons learning basic dance moves. In addition, they choreographed sequences which were encompassed into this final piece of work, ‘The Potter Waltz”, which they showcased at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School’s Arts Festival in February 2017 to rapturous applause!