Breakdance Ballet

An exciting collaboration between the Grand Opera House, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Vibe Academy and Ruth Brill.

We worked over 3 days to develop and devise our own piece of ‘Breakdance Ballet’ inspired by my choreography of ‘Peter & The Wolf’. I taught a ballet technique warm up each day, with the young dancers learning ballet arm and feet positions, and a series of exercises including pliés, tendus, jumps, pirouettes and gallops. Live piano accompaniment was played every day. We explored my choreography for ‘Peter & The Wolf’ and explored the movement various characters in the show – Peter, Bird, Duck, Cat, Grandad, Hunters and Wolf – and the dancers then developed their own choreography for each character. We worked with composer and pianist Andrew Kristy to write a new piece of modern music, inspired by Prokofiev’s original musical themes for ‘Peter & The Wolf’ especially for our piece. We also shared various photographs and videos, both from the production and others to give them an insight into what the day to day life is like as a professional ballet dancer.

The performance piece had five sections – Character introductions inspired by the show, a ‘dance off’ combining the skills of both breakdance and ballet, the catching of the wolves, a junior and senior group dance sequence, and finale.

I had an incredible time working with the enthusiastic and creative young people. We have achieved so much in just 3 days. They were all open-minded to try new moves and hear about the world of ballet. Thank you everyone for your energy and commitment. I’ve loved working with you.