RICHMOND DANCE STUDENTS IN C.A.T. INTENSIVE PROGRAMME 

Richmond School and Sixth Form College dance department has strong links with Dance City, based in Newcastle. Through these links, students are encouraged to audition for Dance City’s CAT – Centre for Advanced Training – part of the Department for Education’s Music and Dance Scheme offering dance training to young people across the North East. If students are successful, they participate in contemporary and street dance classes in Newcastle, as well as having the opportunity to take part in a week-long ‘Intensive’ – a full week of dance training designed to fast-track their dance skills. 

Three Richmond students have recently taken part in the Intensive – Lillyanna Navuso, Year 12, Elsie Boyd, Year 10 and Amelie Beasley, Year 9. Later on in April, Eva Noone, Year 9, will be attending. 

We asked the students a bit about their experiences. Firstly, Amelie, who took part in the street dance programme: 

“I had a great time last week! 

For the whole week I was working on a choreographed piece to perform at the CAT summer show.  

We would arrive in the morning, warm up, do our morning class, have lunch, come back for our afternoon class and then stretch to finish. 

I really enjoyed learning a lot of new styles and techniques which have definitely helped improve my dance skills further. I think the main thing I learned from this week was making sure I found ways to keep my energy levels up throughout the week as they were very long and tiring days! The week was also good practice for any possible future in the dance industry.” 

Secondly, Elsie, who was on the contemporary programme: 

“As part of the CAT scheme that I attend every Sunday at Dance City in Newcastle, I spent the half term week on an intensive training program. During this week we were coached by visiting professionals from Pelican Theatre Company. 

The theme for the week was recycling and global warming and what difference we can make as small individuals when some people are polluting by flying in private jets.  

The week really helped me to improve my contemporary dance techniques. I learned lots of new skills around floor work. We built on these skills as the week went on and finally put them all together into a 7-minute dance piece. The week gave me a really good idea about what it was like to be a professional dancer. This is something I may pursue in the future.  

We will be performing with the Pelican Theatre in their April tour called Kylie Jenners Private Jet. 

I’m looking forward to the performance after such a brilliant week!” 

Finally, Lillyanna, also on the contemporary programme: 

“During half term, we attended a week-long intensive dance workshop with a guest choreographer. This year my group were coached by Sophie from Tom Dale Dance Company. From Monday to Friday, 10:00am to 5:00pm, we created, improvised and learned. I had the opportunity to dance with a VR headset – we also used the Canva app to create different textures and devised movement through this process.  

The highlight of the week for me was definitely using the VR headset because it was something new and helped me understand how to make my movement more textural and visual. 

The main thing I learnt from my experience was to have patience, due to the long hours demanded, and to maintain a positive attitude towards my learning despite how tired I was. 

My future? An interesting question. Maybe a dance conservatoire? Or the traditional route through uni.” 

It ceratinly sounds as though the students had a great time, despite the long hours and intensive nature of the week! 

We look forward to hearing Eva’s report later on in April. 

Thanks to the Richmond School Trustees for providing some of the funding to enable these students to take up this brilliant opportunity.